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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
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https://archive.org/details/georgeinnessnameOOtrum 


ENGRAVED  BY  T.  JOHNSON. 


AFTER  A  PHOTOGRAPH  BY  BRADY. 

By  Courtesy  of  The  Century  Company. 


GEORGE  INNEvSS. 


George  Inness.N.A. 


H  /Iftemodal 


The  Student,  the  Artist,  and  the  Man. 


By 


ALFRED  XRUMBLE. 


“THE  COLLECTOR,” 

454  West  24TH  Street, 


New  York  City. 
1895. 


Printed  by  William  Green,  324  to  330  Pearl  Street,  New  York  City. 


THE  J.  PAUL  CCTTY  MUSEUM  LIBRARY 


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EXPLANATORY. 


The  basis  of  this  monograph  is  a  study  of  the  late  George  Inness, 
published  in  The  Collector,  in  October,  1894.  The  compilation 
of  this  study  was  caused  by  the  death  of  the  artist.  Having 
undertaken  it  as  a  matter  of  duty  and  interest  to  American  art,  the 
writer  had  no  idea  of  the  difficulty  of  the  task.  Great  an  artist  as 
George  Inness  was,  and  widely  known  as  he  was,  the  biographical  material 
relating  to  him  was  meagre.  The  collection  of  the  facts  of  his  life  given 
in  the  paper  alluded  to,  and  here  presented  with  revisions  and  expansions, 
necessitated  a  persistent,  close,  and  widely-distributed  inquiry,  which  con¬ 
vinced  the  inquirer  that,  no  other  adequate  record  of  the  American 
Master  existing,  it  was  but  just  that  he  should  be  chronicled  in  a  more 
worthy  form,  if  only  for  the  information  of  future  and  more  competent 
chroniclers.  This  is  the  origin  of  the  present  monograph,  and  its  only 
excuse. 


ALFRED  TRUMBLE. 


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GEORGE  INNESS. 


I. 

A  T  a  time  when  the  art  of  this  country  is  in  a  state  of  transition;  when  the  methods 
of  thought  and  execution  of  the  past  have  given  place  to  the  radically  different 
ones  of  the  present ;  when  our  painters  are  in  a  tentative  and  experimental  condition, 
and  their  productions  rather  the  reflection  of  many  other  views  than  the  individual 
expression  of  original  ideas,  uninfluenced  by  external  conditions,  the  death  of  an 
artist  like  George  Inness  assumes  an  importance  greater  than  that  which  attaches  to 
his  mere  personal  loss.  It  means  not  only  the  disappearance  from  active  existence 
of  a  great  and  original  man,  but  of  a  man  so  great,  so  original,  so  progressive  and 
powerful  in  expressiveness,  that  he  leaves  a  significant  void  in  our  art ;  one  which 
certainly  cannot  be  repaired  at  the  present  time,  and  probably  not  for  a  long  time  to 
come. 

It  is  with  no  desire  to  unduly  exalt  the  dead,  or  disparage  the  living,  that  this 
statement  is  made.  An  unprejudiced  examination  of  the  existing  state  of  landscape 
art  in  America  can  lead  to  no  other  conclusion.  Leaving  aside  the  older  school,  that 
which  has  grown  up  in  the  present  generation  presents  two  strongly  marked  divisions. 
One  is  composed  of  men  who  have  been  materially  influenced  by  the  French  school 
of  1830,  and  in  lesser  number  and  of  more  recent  date  by  the  existing  school  of  Hol¬ 
land,  and  who,  having  fallen  into  a  certain  manner  of  thought  and  expression,  are 
content  to  travel  the  single  path  which  they  have  made  for  themselves,  or  have 
adapted  themselves  to ;  the  other,  of  a  newer  contingent,  whose  art  ideal  is  that 
created  by  the  reactionary  French  school  of  the  present,  to  which  Manet  gave  the 
impetus,  which  gave  origin  to  the  title  impressionism,  and  which  Monet,  the  present 
high  priest  of  the  cult,  might  term,  as  his  admirers  do  term  it,  the  school  of  the 
luministes.  In  the  former  case,  we  have  a  class  of  artists  whose  merit,  frequently 
great,  is  still  limited  by  comparatively  narrow  boundaries ;  in  the  other,  painters 
whose  highest  ambition  is  imitative,  and  who,  no  matter  how  great  their  dexterity 
and  technical  skill,  are,  in  every  essential  sense,  mere  followers  of  men  who  may,  in 
their  way,  style  themselves  pioneers. 


7 


Among  these  contemporaries  George  Inness  towered  as  a  giant.  He  had  come 
into  art  in  the  time  of  the  old  school,  which  the  modems  so  frankly  despise.  He, 
too,  had  been  subject  to  the  influence  of  the  great  Frenchmen,  who  so  completely 
revolutionized  the  art  of  their  century.  His  earlier  works  exhibited  the  weaknesses 
of  the  art,  which  was  popular  in  this  country  when  his  art  life  began.  Later,  one 
could  trace  the  bearing  which  the  studies  involved  by  his  earlier  visits  to  Europe  had 
upon  his  mind,  and  which,  by  broadening  his  views,  and  emancipating  his  hand,  com¬ 
menced  to  give  his  genius  its  destined  direction.  He  had  set  forth  by  following  a 
road  beaten  out  by  others.  Now  he  struck  aside,  and  beat  a  track  out  for  himself. 
The  spirit  which  had  warmed  his  youth  into  studious  life,  now  flamed  up  into  the  fire 
of  the  explorer:  profound  thought,  the  vag^e,  half-formed  ideas,  which  are  the  spurs 
to  what  we  call  inspiration,  created  in  him  an  ambition  as  restless  as  the  winds  and 
the  tides,  and  at  the  same  juncture  nerved  him,  heart  and  hand.  Yet,  with  all  his 
confidence  in  himself,  he  was  always  his  own  sternest  critic  :  a  man,  always  in  action, 
always  advancing,  and  never  satisfied  with  the  manner  or  result  of  his  improvement, 
grows  old  only  in  years. 

In  fact,  as  far  as  his  art  was  concerned,  George  Inness  never  revealed  the  weak¬ 
ness  which  is  almost  invariably  the  accompaniment  of  advancing  years.  From  the 
time  his  individuality  boldly  declared  itself,  say  about  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  his 
processes  continued  to  expand  and  amplify  in  force.  This  period,  upon  which  his  per¬ 
manent  reputation  will  rest,  itself  possesses  two  distinct  phases.  In  the  first,  he  still 
retained  a  measure  of  his  earlier  feeling  and  the  influences  which  affected  it.  In  the 
second,  and  last,  he  had  absolutely  cast  off  every  trammel.  At  an  age  when  men 
commonly  settle  in  fixed  grooves,  he  had  no  prescribed  way  of  working.  His  only 
way  was  to  improve  upon  himself,  to  drive  on,  to  compel  to-morrow  to  outdo  to-day. 
No  man,  probably,  had  ever  less  vanity  in  himself.  It  was  not,  with  him,  a  matter 
of  pride  in  what  he  did,  but  an  absorbing  craving,  a  burning  and  irresistible  impulse, 
to  do  what  he  dreamed  of  doing,  and  hoped  to  do  in  the  end.  How  far  he  progressed 
toward  the  attainment  of  this  ambition  his  works  remain  to  testify.  Perhaps  it  is 
not  even  jiist  to  call  it  an  ambition,  for  with  him  his  art  was  a  religion,  and  his  one 
desire  in  pursuing  it  the  desire  of  a  devotee.  No  man,  certainly,  could  have  been 
more  indifferent  to  what  reward  of  honorable  esteem  or  substantial  profit  it  brought 
him.  Struggle  and  poverty;  recognition  and  success,  were  alike  to  him.  He  lived  in 
his  art  and  for  his  art  alone. 

It  has  been  truly  said  that  to  thoroughly  understand  the  art  of  an  artist  one  must 
not  only  know  his  works,  but  know  the  man  himself.  In  nc  instance  could  this  be 
truer  than  in  that  of  George  Inness. 


II. 

The  life  of  a  man  naturally  of  the  most  delicate  sensibilities,  of  a  high-strung 
nervous  temperament,  of  studious  and  self-investigatory  habits,  and  the  simplest  per¬ 
sonal  tastes,  is  never  characterized  by  particularly  eventful  episodes.  When  such  a 

8 


man,  moreover,  is  completely  bound  up  in  the  pursuit  which  he  has  selected  for  him¬ 
self,  making  it  part  of  his  body  and  his  soul,  and  allowing  the  world  to  move  around 
him  as  it  may  list,  his  existence  is  passed  in  a  realm  of  his  own  creation,  to  which 
few  penetrate;  and  of  these,  fewer  still  really  comprehend  him.  Without  being 
actually  a  recluse,  such  a  man  lives  a  life  apart.  To  merely  know  him  is  not  to 
understand  him.  He  must  be  studied,  as  well  as  known,  if  one  would  even  approxi¬ 
mately  arrive  at  an  appreciation  of  himself  and  his  aims. 

I  knew,  and  know  of,  no  other  American  artist  of  distinction,  except  William 
Page,  who  in  any  way  resembled  George  Inness  in  his  mental  characteristics. 
Curiously  enough,  both  were  born  in  almost  the  same  section.  Page  at  Albany,  N.  Y., 
in  i8ii,  and  Inness  about  two  miles  west  of  Newburg,  in  1825.  Thus  Page  was  four¬ 
teen  years  the  senior  of  his  contemporary,  and  as  he  died  in  1885,  their  limit  of  life 
was  about  the  same.  Page,  like  Inness,  was  devoted  to  the  study  of  metaphysics, 
and  to  weaving  the  theories  and  ideas  he  derived  from  them  with  his  art.  They 
studied  in  the  same  mystic-theological  field,  and  to  a  certain  point  there  was  a  most 
interesting  resemblance  in  their  theorizations.  But  Page  suffered  the  calamity  of  a 
failure  of  his  mental  powers,  which  rendered  the  last  decade  of  his  life  practically  a 
blank.  Moreover,  far  as  he  advanced  in  art — and  in  relation  to  his  time  he  advanced 
very  far — he  never  completely  released  himself  from  the  influence  of  the  Italian  school 
of  the  past,  and  particularly  of  Titian,  of  whom  he  had  made  a  special  study,  whereas 
Inness  not  only  asserted  himself  distinctly  many  years  before  he  ceased  to  labor,  but 
never  halted  by  the  way,  and  retained  his  intellectual  powers  to  the  last.  Page,  too, 
was  a  man  singularly  deficient  in  the  command  of  language,  either  as  a  conversation¬ 
alist  or  a  writer,  while  Inness  was  especially  fluent  and  eloquent  both  with  speech 
and  pen.  In  their  art  the  two  men  resembled  each  other,  to  an  extent,  in  their  love 
and  command  of  color,  but  the  color  of  Page  was  a  splendid  convention  only,  based 
on  the  study  of  pictures,  while  that  of  Inness  was  instinct  with  the  ever-vital  splendor 
of  nature  herself. 

The  date  of  George  Inness’s  birth  is  given  as  May  i,  1825.  Delicate  from  child¬ 
hood,  and  gifted  with  the  most  exquisite  nervous  sensitiveness,  the  boy  must  have 
seemed  predestined  to  a  life  of  vicissitudes  and  trouble.  He  was  a  reader  from  the 
time  he  learned  to  read,  and  a  creature  of  his  own  imagination  from  the  time  his  mind 
received  the  impressions  of  his  reading.  He  often  told  how,  in  his  childhood,  awful 
and  even  frightful  dreams  would  rouse  him  from  his  sleep,  and  send  him  scouring 
about  the  darkness  of  the  house,  until  his  nerves  composed  themselves  sufficiently  to 
permit  him  to  seek  repose  again. 

Such  a  special  incident  is  trifling  in  itself.  It  was  but  the  result  of  extreme 
mental  tension  on  a  timorous  child.  But  when  it  is  borne  in  view  in  tracing  the 
course  of  the  artist  through  his  life  and  his  working  career,  it  is  a  clear  indication  of 
his  character  of  mind,  and  an  index  to  those  later  leanings  of  thought  which  exercised 
such  powerful  influence  on  his  art. 

Young  Inness’s  parents  settled  in  Newark,  N.  J.,  while  he  was  a  boy.  In  the 
latter  city,  at  the  age  of  about  fourteen  years,  he  received  some,  apparently  not  very 

9 


regular,  lessons  in  drawing  from  an  old  drawing-master  named  Barker.  The  condi¬ 
tion  of  his  health  probably  did  not  permit  of  his  assiduous  application  to  his  instruc¬ 
tions,  but  he  himself  considered  that  he  had  secured  a  fair  groundwork  for  the  future 
from  his  pedagogue  of  the  pencil.  His  one  ambition,  while  under  his  tutelage,  was 
to  some  day  learn  to  draw  as  well  as  his  master,  and,  as  he  once  naively  remarked  to 
me,  “  I  think  the  best  thing  that  can  happen  to  a  boy  is  to  have  some  honest  ambi¬ 
tion  stirred  up  in  him,  no  matter  how  trifling  it  may  be.”  That  the  ambition  was  not 
trifling  in  this  case,  circumstances  abundantly  proved. 

The  elder  Inness  desired  to  train  his  son  for  a  commercial  career,  but  in  this  the 
youth  proved  entirely  intractable,  A  month’s  service  in  a  store,  which  his  father  set 
up  for  him,  according  to  his  own  admission,  resulted  in  his  losing  all  his  customers. 
Meantime  his  passion  for  drawing  suggested  another  practical  vocation  for  him. 
Like  his  great  French  contemporary,  Charles  Jacque,  he  was  set  to  work  as  a  map 
engraver,  with  the  firm  of  Sherman  &  Smith,  in  New  York  City,  He  did  not  endure 
this  drudgery  even  as  long  as  did  Jacque,  for  he  abandoned  it  at  the  end  of  a  year, 
almost  broken  in  health  from  the  confinement  to  which  it  subjected  him.  Becoming 
partially  restored,  he  returned  to  his  copper  plates,  but  soon  left  them  again  for  good. 
The  experience  had,  however,  done  him  that  much  service  that  it  had  assisted  in  the 
training  of  his  eye  and  hand,  and  a  brief  course  of  sketching  from  nature  which  he 
now  undertook,  with  his  Newark  home  for  headquarters,  showed  a  considerable  ad¬ 
vancement  in  his  powers.  His  color  sense  had  now  been  aroused,  and  the  desire  to 
be  a  painter  had  grown  into  a  determination.  He  was  now  a  young  man  of  twenty 
years,  capable  of  judging  for  himself,  and  precarious  as  the  career  of  an  artist  then 
was  in  America,  his  wishes  were  no  longer  opposed. 

There  was  at  that  time  in  New  York  a  French  artist  of  some  popularity,  Regis 
Gignoux.  He  was  but  nine  years  the  senior  of  young  Inness,  but  had  enjoyed  the 
advantage  of  stud}''  in  France,  both  in  the  provinces  and  in  Paris,  where  he  was  a 
pupil  of  Paul  Delaroche.  Gignoux  had  been  two  years  in  this  country,  painting 
American  landscapes,  which  secured  esteem  in  their  day,  when  Inness  came  to  him 
as  a  pupil,  and  from  him  received,  during  a  few  months,  the  only  direct  instruction 
as  a  painter  that  he  ever  obtained.  It  served  him  in  so  far  that  it  gave  him  sufficient 
insight  in  the  handling  of  color  to  prosecute  his  independent  investigations  of  that 
great  problem,  and  he  set  himself  to  work  to  master  it,  in  a  studio  of  his  own,  in  1846. 

His  beginnings  were  naturally  humble.  To  receive  $25  for  a  picture  was  a 
triumph  for  him.  But  the  pictures  themselves  did  not  satisfy  him.  He  knew  that  he 
was  groping  in  the  dark.  He  was  painting  as  others  around  him  were  painting,  but 
he  was  not  painting  as  he  felt,  and  as  he  wished  to  paint.  These  things,  he  argued 
with  himself,  were  not  nature.  They  had  none  of  the  spirit  of  nature  in  them. 
They  were  mere  colored  drawings,  inspired  with  none  of  the  movement  and  vitality 
that  he  felt  instinctively,  when  he  looked  abroad  at  forest  and  farmland,  and  moun¬ 
tain,  river  and  sky. 

“One  afternoon,”  he  said,  “when  I  was  completely  dispirited  and  disgusted,  I 
gave  over  work  and  went  out  for  a  walk.  In  a  print-shop  window  I  noticed  an  en- 


graving  after  one  of  the  old  masters.  I  do  not  remember  what  picture  it  was.  I 
could  not  then  analyze  that  which  attracted  me  in  it,  but  it  fascinated  me.  The  print 
seller  showed  me  others,  and  they  repeated  the  same  sensation  in  me.  There  was  a 
power  of  motive,  a  bigness  of  grasp  in  them.  They  were  nature,  rendered  grand 
instead  of  being  belittled  by  trifling  detail  and  puny  execution.  I  commenced  to 
take  them  out  to  nature  with  me,  to  compare  them  with  her  as  she  really  appeared, 
and  the  light  began  to  dawn.  I  had  no  originals  to  study,  but  I  found  some  of  their 
qualities  in  paintings  by  Cole  and  Durand  to  which  I  had  access.  There  was  a  lofty 
striving  in  Cole,  although  he  did  not  technically  realize  that  for  which  he  reached. 
There  was  in  Durand  a  more  intimate  feeling  of  nature.  ‘If,’  thought  I,  ‘these  two 
can  only  be  combined!  I  will  try!’  ” 

The  spirit  then  aroused  in  the  youth  of  twenty  was  still  active  in  the  man  of 
three  score  and  ten,  when  his  brush  was  finally  stricken  from  his  hand. 

III. 

Experimenting  and  working  on  the  lines  which  he  thus  laid  down  for  himself, 
Inness’s  ability  began  to  make  an  impression  and  his  pictures  to  attract  attention. 
The  American  Art  Union,  which  was  then  in  successful  operation,  purchased  from 
him.  He  found  some  individual  patrons — among  them  the  dry  goods  auctioneer, 
Ogden  Haggerty,  who  not  only  bought  his  pictures,  but  proposed  to  him  to  defray 
his  expenses  for  a  trip  to  Europe.  Early  in  1847  he  sailed  for  England,  whence  he 
soon  passed  over  to  Italy,  where  he  remained  more  than  a  year,  painting  principally 
in  Rome  or  the  vicinity.  He  here  commenced  to  really  form  what  might  be  called  a 
style — a  style  in  which  one  can  distinguish  the  influence  of  the  classic  art  of  the 
landscape  masters  of  the  past,  but  which  still  has  the  impress  of  a  certain  individu¬ 
ality.  The  effect  which  this  Italian  sojourn  had  upon  him  was  much  akin  to  that 
which  the  Englishman,  Richard  Wilson,  had  experienced  a  century  before. 

He  returned  to  New  York,  but,  restless  in  spirit,  spurred  by  a  keen  sense  of 
deficiency,  and  conscious  that  he  had  not  carried  his  studies  far  enough,  he,  in  1850, 
took  flight  across  the  Atlantic  again,  this  time  to  France.  French  art  at  that  time 
was  in  the  full  swing  of  a  triumphant  revolution.  The  league  of  giants — Millet, 
Corot,  Delacroix,  Rousseau,  Dupre,  Decamps,  Jacque,  Diaz — were  battering  down 
the  last  ruins  of  the  walls  of  conventionalism  with  colossal  blows.  The  air  was  full 
of  the  contagion  of  battle  against  the  artificial  and  the  false  in  art.  Amid  this  en¬ 
thusiastic  awakening,  the  impressionable  American  would  not  have  been  himself  had 
he  not  become  infected  by  it.  He  lived,  as  he  said,  in  a  sort  of  stupor  of  intellectual 
amazement,  working  almost  mechanically,  but  instinctively  in  the  direction  which  he 
felt  to  be  the  true  one. 

His  return  to  America,  after  a  sojourn  of  a  year  abroad,  found  him  the  first  of 
our  landscape  painters  to  essay  the  application  and  expression  of  the  developments 
which  were  then  riding  on  their  high  tide  in  France.  His  works  of  this  period,  in 
many  instances,  show  this  influence  very  clearly,  but  his  art  remained  uneven  and 


indicative  of  the  conflict  he  was  waging  with  himself.  In  some  of  his  pictures  he 
displays  his  old  elaboration  of  detail,  in  others  he  works  broadly,  simply  and  directly 
to  the  point.  If  he  had  been  a  merely  imitative  man,  he  would  have  fallen  into 
either  the  Italian  or  the  French  style,  and  been  lost.  But  to  him  life  was  but  another 
name  for  progress,  and  the  lessons  conveyed  by  the  works  of  others  only  a  stimulus 
to  the  solution  of  the  newer  problems  they  inspired. 

He  spent  four  years  in  New  England,  amid  the  lovely  rural  scenery  of  which 
Medfleld,  Mass.,  is  the  centre.  Thence,  after  another  European  visit,  he  removed  in 
order  to  make  a  settlement  at  Eaglewood,  in  a  picturesque  country  near  Perth  Amboy, 
N.  J.  Up  to  this  time  he  had  not  formulated  the  ideas  to  which  he  endeavored  to 
give  artistic  expression.  They  remained  vague  and  conflicting,  and  reflected  them¬ 
selves  in  the  divergences  and  inequalities  of  his  works. 

During  his  first  sojourn  in  Italy,  William  Page  was  settled  in  Rome.  Page,  who 
from  his  youth  had  been  inclined  to  mysticism,  and  who  had  such  strong  religious 
tendencies  that  he  had  even  contemplated  adopting  the  ministry,  had  taken  up  the 
study  of  the  theology  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  to  which  he  became  a  convert. 
Whether  this  had  drawn  Inness’s  attention  in  the  same  direction,  or  whether  he  took 
up  the  theme  independently,  I  do  not  know.  Indeed,  I  have  often  imagined  that  he 
did  not  know  himself.  It  is  possible  that  Page  may  have  influenced  him,  especially 
as  the  latter  had  his  home  at  Tottenville,  Staten  Island,  just  across  the  ferry  from 
Perth  Amboy.  At  any  rate,  during  the  half  dozen  years  of  his  residence  at  Eagle- 
wood,  George  Inness’s  entire  leisure  from  his  easel  was  occupied  in  the  investigation 
of  the  Swedenborgian  principles  involved  in  the  doctrine  of  divine  humanity,  and  it 
was  out  of  this  doctrine  that  he  drew  that  which  may,  with  perfect  propriety,  be 
called  the  religion  of  his  art. 

In  view  of  the  important,  and  indeed  ultimately  supreme,  influence  this  adoption 
of  faith  exercised  on  his  art,  it  is  just  as  well  to  clearly  and  briefly  review  it  here. 
The  grand  and  distinctive  principle  of  the  Swedenborgian  theology,  next  to  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  divine  humanity,  is  the  doctrine  of  life.  According  to  this  latter,  God 
alone  lives.  All  creation,  man  included,  is  dead.  Our  apparent  life,  the  life  of  the 
earth  itself,  is  but  the  divine  presence,  which  exists  in  individuals  and  in  objects  in 
different  degrees;  in  trees,  plants,  stones,  the  waters,  air  and  sky.  It  was  the  later 
belief  of  George  Inness,  that  he  worked  ever  under  the  instruction  and  guidance  of  a 
divine  power,  which  gave  direction  to  his  labor  and  guided  him  to  a  comprehension 
of  the  significance  of  what  he  painted,  and  to  the  truthful  expression  of  it.  In  a  con¬ 
versation  with  Mr.  George  W.  Sheldon,*  one  of  his  biographers,  he  once  said: 

“The  whole  effort  and  aim  of  the  true  artist  is  to  eschew  whatever  is  individual, 
whatever  is  the  result  of  the  influence  of  his  own  evil  nature,  of  his  own  carnal 
lusts,  and  to  acknowledge  nothing  but  the  inspiration  that  comes  from  truth  and 
goodness,  or  the  divine  principle  within  him,  nothing  but  the  one  personality,  or  God, 
who  is  the  centre  of  man,  and  the  source  of  all  noble  inspiration.  ”  Man,  his  argnment 


*See  appendix. 


12 


proceeds,  is  no  more  a  mere  personality  than  nature  is  mere  dumb  substance.  Every¬ 
thing  is  animated  by  the  spii'it  of  God,  and  nothing  can  be  represented  truthfully  un¬ 
less  this  spirit  is  recognized  with  love  and  reverence.  “  I  would  not  give  a  fig,”  he 
goes  on,  “  for  art  ideas  except  as  they  represent  what  I  perceive  behind  them;  and  I 
love  to  think  most  of  what  I,  in  common  with  all  men,  need  most — the  good  of  our 
practice  in  the  art  of  life.  Rivers,  streams,  the  rippling  brook,  the  hillside,  the  sky, 
clouds — all  things  we  see — will  convey  the  sentiment  of  the  highest  art  if  we  are  in 
the  love  of  God  and  the  desire  of  truth.” 

This  was,  in  substance,  the  theology  which  George  Inness  worked  out  during  his 
residence  at  Eaglewood,  and  which  later,  year  by  year,  he  worked  more  closely  into 
his  art.  When  he  was  not  endeavoring  to  paint  it  he  was  writing  it,  not  with  any 
special  idea  of  giving  it  to  the  public,  but  for  the  purpose  of  more  closely  examining 
and  expounding  it  for  himself.  After  a  long  day’s  labor  in  his  studio,  he  would  refresh 
himself  with  a  long  night  at  his  desk.  After  a  day  of  disappointment  at  his  easel, 
through  failure  to  secure  upon  the  canvas  that  subtle  spirituality  which  he  saw,  or 
rather  felt,  in  his  subject  as  its  soul,  he  would  turn  for  fresh  enlightenment  and  in¬ 
spiration  to  his  manuscripts,  and  seek  in  them  the  clue  which  he  had  lost. 


IV. 

George  Inness  was  made  an  associate  of  the  National  Academy  of  Design  in  1853, 
and  in  1868,  during  his  residence  at  Eaglewood,  was  elected  a  full  member.  After 
leaving  his  New  Jersey  home,  and  spending  about  a  year  in  New  York,  he  in  1871 
made  another  voyage  to  Europe,  this  time  remaining  four  years  in  Rome  and  Paris. 
The  pictures  which  he  produced  during  this  period  are  much  broader  and  simpler  in 
treatment  than  many  which  preceded  them,  and  more  studied  in  style.  Oddly 
enough,  although  he  had  for  some  years  been  working  upon  his  Swedenborgian 
studies,  he  did  not,  to  any  notable  extent,  begin  to  apply  his  conclusions  yet.  He 
may  still  have  been  meditating  upon  them  without  having  brought  them  into  prac¬ 
tical  form,  or  he  may  have  been  influenced  by  his  surroundings.  The  peculiar  char¬ 
acter  of  the  Italian  scenes  in  which  he  found  himself,  their  romantic  historical  associ¬ 
ations  and  classical  atmosphere,  were  likely  to  produce  an  impression  on  his  mind 
which  would  repeat  itself  in  his  work.  Even  when  at  his  best  in  his  European  sub¬ 
jects,  he  was  never  really  himself,  as  he  was  when  he  treated  our  native  scenery ; 
never  upon  other  motives  did  his  personality  stamp  itself  so  strongly. 

He  spent  the  first  year  after  his  return  in  Boston,  where  his  art  had  long  before 
found  admirers,  and  then  returned  to  New  York,  where  he  maintained  a  studio  until 
he  removed  to  his  home  at  Montclair,  N.  J.  His  worldly  condition  at  this  time  was 
by  no  means  commensurate  with  his  merits,  though  he  had  left  his  years  of  actual, 
serious  struggle,  behind  him.  A  limited  number  of  appreciative  collectors  found 
pleasure  in  his  works,  and  his  sales  at  the  exhibitions  were  moderately  good.  But 
none  of  the  commercial  circumstances  of  life  affected  him  in  the  slightest  degree. 
He  continued  to  paint,  to  develop  his  metaphysical  theories,  and  was  content,  if  not 

13 


happy.  His  industry  was  extraordinary,  but,  in  spite  of  his  incessant  diligence,  the 
amount  of  his  productiveness  was  limited  by  the  system  under  which  he  produced. 

During  this  period  in  New  York  he  at  various  times  occupied  a  studio  adjoining 
that  of  his  son-in-law,  Mr.  Jonathan  Scott  Hartley,  the  sculptor,  in  one  of  the  studio 
buildings  in  West  Fifty-fifth  street,  and  others  in  the  University  Building  and  at 
Booth’s  Theatre.  It  was  his  custom  to  paint  standing,  and  while  his  method  of  execu¬ 
tion  was  rapid  at  the  starting  of  a  picture,  his  speed  would  diminish  as  he  advanced, 
and  as  the  difficulty  of  realizing  the  result  he  aimed  at  grew  upon  him,  canvas  after 
canvas  would  be  set  aside  and  another  subject  commenced.  There  were  invariably 
from  a  dozen  to  a  score  of  these  pictures,  in  various  stages  of  progress,  in  the  studio. 
Occasionally,  in  a  happy  mood,  he  would  complete  one.  Often  he  would  cover  one 
with  an  entirely  different  subject.  Frequently  a  picture  far  advanced,  and  perhaps 
even  completed,  would  arouse  his  dissatisfaction,  and  he  would  fall  to  and  alter  it 
completely,  not  rarely  for  the  worse.  His  peculiar  energy  and  nervous  excitement  at 
his  work,  on  such  occasions,  had  about  it  the  suggestion  of  a  battle.  And,  indeed,  it 
was  a  battle  the  artist  was  fighting,  with  the  impulse  of  genius  to  nerve  his  hand. 

His  day  began  early  and  ended  late.  If  it  happened  to  find  him  in  a  favorable 
spirit,  his  industry  continued  unfiaggingly,  hour  by  hour.  Even  the  incursion  of  a 
visitor  would  not  interrupt  it.  He  would  pursue  his  work  as  he  talked,  perhaps  dilat¬ 
ing  upon  the  theory  of  which  his  brush  provided  practical  illustration.  If  an  idle  mood 
came  on  him,  the  palette  and  brushes  were  laid  aside,  a  cigar-box  probably  produced, 
and  he  would  fill  the  interval  of  relaxation  with  a  veritable  dissertation  upon  his 
favorite  subject.  Even  when  he  did  not  happen  to  have  a  listener,  he  found  relief 
in  uttering  his  thoughts  aloud.  On  his  bad  days,  when  he  could  not  paint,  when  what¬ 
ever  he  set  his  brush  to  went  wrong  in  his  eyes,  he  would  stride  the  room,  carrying  on 
one  of  these  discourses  with  himself,  or  go  to  visit  other  artists  until  the  spirit  rose  in 
him  again,  and  he  resumed  his  task.  Either  in  speech  or  in  his  art,  his  incessant 
mental  activity  had  to  be  provided  with  some  vent. 

It  was,  perhaps,  under  these  circumstances  that  the  personality  of  this  extra¬ 
ordinary  man  could  be  best  studied.  Where  weaker  men  demand  retirement  for  the 
performance  of  their  work,  he  lived  in  it  so  completely,  and  thought  and  action  were 
so  thoroughly  interwoven  with  him,  that  one  then  came  closest  to  George  Inness  as  he 
was.  At  periods  of  absolute  idleness,  when  he  was  physically  worn  out,  for  example, 
or  when  the  necesssity  of  travel  or  some  other  cause  separated  him  from  the  labor 
which  was  his  joy,  he  to  a  great  extent  relapsed  into  himself,  and,  while  always  of  a 
genial  and  pleasant  manner,  did  not  reveal  himself  in  any  approximate  degree.  There 
were,  in  effect,  two  George  Innesses.  The  perfect  one  was  he  in  whom  the  sorcery  of 
his  work  charmed  into  life  all  the  latent  and  dormant  forces  of  the  g^eat  mind  of 
which  that  work  was  the  result,  and  in  its  fashion  remains  the  index. 

He  was  a  man  of  the  middle  stature,  of  a  spare  frame,  with  a  face  full  of  char¬ 
acter,  and  gray,  penetrating  eyes.  He  wore  the  thin  beard  of  a  man  whose  face  had 
never  known  the  touch  of  the  razor,  and  his  broad  brow  was  framed  in  a  mass  of  long 
and  always  disorderly  hair.  A  bust  of  him  by  his  son-in-law,  Mr.  Hartley,  while  some- 

14 


what  idealized,  gives  still  an  excellent  general  idea  of  his  features.  He  was  always 
careless  in  his  dress,  so  that  the  picturesque  ensemble  of  head  and  figure  was  not 
disturbed.  His  movements  were  rapid  with  nervous  energy,  and  when  he  became 
interested  in  conversation  or  discussion,  his  gestures  were  instinctively  appropriate, 
and,  like  the  action  of  his  body,  full  of  spirit.  I  do  not  remember  any  orator  or  player 
who  ever  conveyed  more  force  in  his  physical  accompaniment  of  his  words,  or  more 
harmoniously  joined  the  action  to  the  word.  Indeed,  if  he  had  chosen  to  expound  his 
views  upon  the  rostrum,  his  command  of  language,  his  bursts  of  nobly-phrased  en¬ 
thusiasm,  and  his  frequent,  fluent  flights  of  a  lofty  eloquence  would,  I  am  sure,  have 
held  even  a  skeptical  audience  under  a  spell. 

He,  however,  while  never  affecting  the  habit  of  a  recluse,  avoided,  as  far  as  pos¬ 
sible,  all  public  prominence.  He  took  no  active  part  in  the  movements  of  the  artistic 
societies  to  which  he  belonged,  beyond  contributing  to  their  exhibitions.  He  held 
the  feuds  and  cabals  of  the  contending  factions  of  art  in  the  greatest  aversion,  and 
viewed  the  sensational  devices  adopted  on  occasions  to  give  the  art  he  worshipped 
the  vulgar  popular  attractiveness  of  a  circus,  with  indignant  scorn.  For  medals  or 
other  awards  of  honor  or  merit,  at  the  hands  of  committees  or  juries,  he  cherished  an 
outspoken  contempt.  He  believed  in  the  artist  as  an  artist,  and  in  his  art  as  its  own 
best  reward.  “Think,  work,  do  your  best,”  he  said.  “If  the  world  does  not  then 
appreciate  you,  what  satisfaction  can  a  diploma  or  a  medal  bring?  They  are  only  the 
recognition  of  a  few  men,  who  appreciate  you  anyhow,  and  they  go  to  so  many  who 
are  not  worthy  of  them,  that  they  do  not  carry  any  real  significance  to  those  who  may 
deserve  them.  Pass  your  verdict  upon  yourself,  if  you  are  capable  of  criticising  your¬ 
self.  The  verdict  of  the  world  will  be  passed  in  due  time,  and  it  will  be  a  just  one, 
even  if  it  does  not  sustain  that  of  prize  committees  and  juries  of  award.” 

There  are  painters  among  us  who  claim  the  distinction  of  having  been  pupils  of 
George  Inness,  but  I  know  of  no  such  claim  which  is  not  based  upon  a  very  frail 
foundation.  The  door  of  Inness’s  studio  was  never  closed  against  a  young  man  of  any 
ability.  His  advice  and  suggestion  were  as  free  as  the  songs  of  the  wild  birds.  From 
his  own  struggling  past,  of  which  the  memory  never  was  lost  to  him,  he  knew  the 
value  of  that  encouragement  and  counsel  which  had  been  denied  to  him,  and  which, 
as  part  of  the  duty  of  his  life,  he  never  denied  to  others.  But  a  teacher  he  never  was. 
I  question  if  even  his  son,  an  artist  of  great  merit,  who  has  inherited  much  of  his 
father’s  ability  as  well  as  his  name,  was  ever  a  pupil  of  his  in  the  strict  sense.  I  re¬ 
member,  one  bleak  winter  evening,  when  the  snow  was  deep  and  crusted  with  rime, 
encountering  Inness  as  he  was  plodding  homeward  from  his  studio,  and  we  went  on 
together.  I  was  just  from  the  studio  of  a  painter  who,  in  speaking  of  his  own  life  to 
me,  had  somewhat  boastfully  claimed  to  have  been  the  “  favorite  pupil  ”  of  George 
Inness,  so  I  asked  the  master  whether  he  had  had  many  pupils  in  his  time. 

“I  have  had  one  for  a  very  long  time,”  he  replied,  smiling  in  his  peculiar  way, 

‘  ‘  and  he  is  more  than  enough  for  me.  The  more  I  teach  him  the  less  he  knows,  and 
the  older  he  grows  the  farther  he  is  from  what  he  ought  to  be.” 

It  was  not  necessary  to  inquire  the  name  of  this  intractable  neophyte,  of  course. 

15 


V. 


When  George  Inness  came  from  Boston  to  make  his  final  settlement  in  New  York, 
a  movement  of  great  significance  to  the  art  of  America  was  already  making  itself  felt. 
The  revolt — for  such,  in  fact,  it  was — of  the  younger  painters  against  the  National 
Academy  was  in  ferment.  The  older  and  the  newer  elements  in  the  artistic  body 
were  distinctly,  and  even  in  many  cases  violently,  antagonistic.  The  former  saw  a 
threat  in  the  invasion  of  a  little  army  of  talented  and  energetic  men,  fresh  with  the 
spirit  of  youth  and  strong  in  the  best  training  of  the  great  schools  of  Europe.  As 
for  the  latter,  they  made  no  hesitation  in  expressing  their  contempt  for  the  antiquated 
methods  of  their  elders,  feeble  at  least  where  they  were  not  absolutely  false;  and 
what  respect  could  they  entertain  personally  for  an  artistic  body  leading  members  of 
which  boldly  avowed  in  print  such  sentiments  as: 

“  Corot  is  incomplete  and  slovenly.  His  landscapes  are  ghosts  of  landscapes. 
They  have  neither  technical  nor  literary  excellence.” 

‘  ‘  I  am  not  an  admirer  of  Millet.  His  pictures  are  coarse  and  vulgar  in  char¬ 
acter;  they  are  repulsive.  .  .  .  Troyon’s  paintings  are  rather  coarse  in  character. 

I  shouldn’t  call  him  a  colorist  by  any  means.” 

“  I  can’t  think  anything  of  Corot.  I  can’t  understand  him.” 

“  Delacroix  is  a  mere  botch.  He  could  not  draw,  he  had  no  idea  of  composition, 
he  flung  his  color  at  you  like  a  brickbat;  he  is  as  horrible  as  Millet,  who  strikes  you 
as  one  of  his  brutal  peasants  might  hit  you  with  a  club.” 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  newcomers,  in  spite  of  the  excellent  reception  given 
to  their  works  by  the  Academy,  in  the  memorable  exhibition  of  1876,  should  have 
failed  to  see  in  the  professors  of  such  principles  any  promise  of  sympathy,  or  that 
they  should  resolve  to  form  a  society  of  their  own  for  mutual  encouragement  and 
defense  ?  The  marvel  would  have  been  that  they  had  not  done  so. 

Most  of  the  stronger  members  of  the  Academy,  it  is  true,  even  when  they  were 
not  in  sympathy  with  the  new  movement,  were  opposed  to  treating  it  inhospitably;  but 
the  Academy  had  become,  in  a  manner,  compacted  on  trade  union  principles,  and 
upon  the  strong  men  had  fallen  the  unwritten  but  accepted  obligation  of  carrying  the 
weaklings.  So  the  Society  of  American  Artists  came  into  existence,  and  an  under¬ 
current  of  ill-feeling  set  in  between  the  two  institutions,  which  even  now,  with  all  the 
liberal  concessions  made  by  the  Academy,  still  runs  a  sluggish  course,  although  it 
has,  happily,  nearly  run  itself  out. 

In  this  feud  George  Inness,  although  an  Academician,  had  no  part.  Both  parties 
recognized  the  distinction  of  his  art,  and  he  was  one  of  the  first  of  a  group  of  his 
confrhres  of  the  Academy  to  be  elected  into  the  new  brotherhood.  But  he  had 
already  got  beyond  the  necessity,  as  he  had  certainly  always  been  beyond  any  active 
desire,  for  such  recognition.  The  tide  had  turned,  and  was  setting  in  his  favor  with 
ever-growing  volume.  Where  formerly  collectors  had  purchased  a  picture  or  two  by 
him,  they  now  commenced  to  collect  them.  About  1875  Mr.  Thomas  B.  Clarke  began 
the  acquisitions  which  have  resulted  in  a  group  of  Innesses,  in  his  private  collection, 

16 


which  number  some  twenty-five  examples  of  the  first  quality.  The  late  George  I. 
Seney  was,  I  believe,  his  next  liberal  patron.  Others  followed,  who  will  be  alluded 
to  elsewhere.  A  collective  exhibition  of  his  works,  at  the  American  Art  Galleries,  in 
1885,  gave  additional  impetus  to  his  fortunes,  and  as  far  as  the  material  problem  of  an 
artist’s  life  is  concerned,  his  victory  was  won. 

But  in  his  art  he  remained  in  the  lists.  His  was  not  a  nature  to  be  satisfied  with 
standing  still.  He  had  built  himself  a  studio  adjoining  the  old  Dodge  mansion,  which 
he  had  purchased,  in  a  beautiful  situation  near  Montclair,  N.  J.  There,  and  during 
his  excursions  to  New  England,  Nova  Scotia,  Virgfinia,  California,  he  continued  his 
grapple  for  his  ideal,  and  the  fruit  was  the  series  of  pictures  in  his  now  pronounced 
and  most  broadly  simplified  style,  which  he  continued  until  almost  the  day  of  his 
departure  on  the  journey  which  was  destined  to  be  his  last.  He  had,  perhaps,  never 
been  happier  during  his  long  career  than  he  was  at  his  Montclair  retreat.  He  was 
superior  to  all  commercial  necessities,  and  independent  of  relations  which  might 
have  imposed  any  trammels  upon  his  art.  He  could  paint  what  he  chose,  and  as  he 
chose.  He  was  surrounded  by  scenes  congenial  in  eharacter,  and  located  in  a  spot 
favorable  for  the  observation  of  those  moods  of  nature  which  he  strove  to  interpret, 
as  expressions  of  her  soul  and  his  own.  His  occasional  journeys  provided  him  with 
a  variety  to  his  subjects  of  study,  and  sent  him  back  with  his  eye  and  mind  refreshed 
for  the  discovery  of  new  beauties  in  the  familiar  scenes.  It  is  not  unnatural  that 
some  of  his  brethren  in  art,  perhaps  not  without  a  pang  of  envy,  looked  upon  this 
later  period  of  his  life  as  an  artist’s  ideal  of  existence. 

He  had  sailed  his  bark  through  troubled  waters,  ruffled  by  many  storms,  to  a  safe 
and  restful  haven.  He  lived  like  a  patriarch,  with  his  son  and  daughter  and  their 
families  for  neighbors.  He  was  secure  in  the  world’s  esteem  and  honor,  and  in  the 
love  and  respect  of  faithful  friends.  He  had  won,  by  fifty  years  of  devotion  to  his  art 
and  fidelity  to  his  conscience,  his  place  at  the  head  of  the  art  of  the  century.  The 
most  ambitious  of  men  would  desire  no  more;  yet,  his  only  ambition,  as  he  watched 
from  his  cottage  door  the  dawn  and  sunset,  the  burning  noonday  and  the  serene 
splendor  of  the  moonlight,  the  summer  storm  rolling  down  the  hillsides,  and  the 
winter  tempest  driving  in  shrill  blasts  over  wastes  of  snow,  was  to  penetrate  the 
great  secret  they  embodied,  and  to  fathom  in  them  the  mysterious  heart  that  stirs  the 
universe. 


VI. 

The  representative  work  of  George  Inness — that  is  to  say,  the  work  in  which  he 
figfures  with  his  most  intense  and  distinctive  individuality — is  that  which  exhibits  it¬ 
self  in  native  subjects.  The  range  of  these  is  very  wide.  It  extends  practically  from 
Canada  to  Mexico  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  New  Jersey,  New  York  and 
New  England,  which,  in  the  order  noted,  formed  his  first  fields  of  study,  seem  always 
to  have  remained  his  favorites.  That  a  subject  was  ever  with  him  a  matter  of 
deliberate  selection  is  doubtful.  His  choice  depended  upon  impulse.  He  painted  in 

17 


sight  of  Mount  Washington  for  days,  until,  upon  one  special  day,  some  unusual  effect 
of  hour  or  weather  on  the  mountain  itself  impressed  him,  and  he  painted  it.  He  saw 
Niagara  a  dozen  or  a  score  of  times,  before  it  had  grown  into  him  as  the  subject  of 
a  picture.  Even  when  he  went  so  far  as  to  make  a  sketch  or  study  of  a  spot,  this 
memorandum  might  lie  by  for  years  before  he  took  it  up  to  work  upon,  or  it  might 
never  be  touched  again. 

In  a  man  of  less  profound  thought,  of  less  persistent  self-examination,  of  less 
rigorous  exploration  of  the  causes  from  which  effects  spring,  this  indecision  might 
have  been  laid  to  mere  whim.  With  him  it  proceeded  from  the  absolute  necessity  he 
was  under  of  experiencing  an  emotion.  He  was  past-master  of  all  the  technical 
resources  of  his  art.  He  had  carried  his  experiments  in  the  possibilities  of  the  palette 
to  an  almost  incredible  length.  He  could  draw  with  accuracy  and  strength.  Yet  he 
could  not,  by  any  exercise  of  will,  have  compelled  himself  to  paint  what  he  did  not 
feel — to  produce  mechanically  what  took  no  grasp  upon  his  heart,  A  poet  may  some¬ 
times  be  obscure,  may  fail  in  attaining  to  his  highest  pitch  of  eloquence,  but  he  can¬ 
not  write  doggerel,  not  from  inability  to  jingle  words  together,  but  from  inability  to 
force  himself  to  the  odious  task.  In  a  similar  sense  George  Inness  could  not  paint 
doggerel.  He  might  not  always  succeed  in  a  picture.  He  sometimes,  even  often¬ 
times,  did  not.  But  it  is  certain  that  in  every  picture  which  he  gave  out  in  his  later 
years  he  believed  that  he  had  mastered  its  spirit,  or  had  as  nearly  mastered  it  as  lay 
within  his  power. 

When  he  was  mistaken  in  this,  it  was  simply  because  he  had  unconsciously  mis¬ 
calculated  the  depth  and  receptiveness  of  his  own  emotions,  or,  according  to  his  own 
doctrine,  because  he  had  failed  to  purify  himself  to  the  standard  of  his  subject,  and 
therefore  was  neither  capable  of  reaching  its  vital  spirit  nor  of  defining  the  extent  to 
which  he  had  fallen  short.  The  greatest  of  artists  cannot  avoid  producing  some  in¬ 
different  works,  for  the  greater  the  artist  the  more  difficult  are  the  tasks  which  he 
sets  himself  to  perform.  Infallibility  is  the  gift  of  no  mortal  being. 

But  what  a  panorama  of  nature  does  this  man  spread  before  you:  Landscapes  of 
autumn,  splendid  in  their  imperial  vestments  of  purple,  crimson  and  gold;  the  slumber¬ 
ous  silence  of  midsummer,  brooding  over  drowsing  fields  and  forests,  in  which  the 
very  leaves  have  sunk  to  sleep;  spreading  meadowlands,  with  their  verdure  bejew- 
eled  with  the  dew  of  morning;  nature  by  day  and  night,  and  at  every  period  of  the 
day  or  night;  under  every  joyous,  sad  or  tragic  aspect,  at  all  seasons,  in  all  weathers, 
in  fertile  valleys,  in  towering  crags,  splintered  by  the  tempests  of  ages;  on  ironbound 
coasts,  whose  cliffs  tremble  at  the  savage  onsets  of  the  stormy  sea.  Could  mere 
painting  convey  such  an  impression  to  you  ?  Could  mere  painting  bring  to  your 
nostrils  this  perfume  of  the  rich  sod,  wet  with  the  softly  descending  rain;  bring  to 
your  ears  the  piping  of  the  robin,  which  salutes  the  dawn  from  its  nest  in  the  road¬ 
side  brambles;  bring  to  your  senses  the  languor  of  this  Indian  summer  day,  in  its 
bridal-veil  of  soft  haze  ?  Could  mere  mechanical  artifice  send  the  thunder  rolling 
down  those  hillsides,  deafen  you  with  the  crashing  fall  of  yonder  cataract,  or  charm 
you  with  the  chime  of  that  spring  rivulet,  released  from  its  winter  bondage  and  danc- 

i8 


ing  merrily  over  its  pebbly  bed  ?  What  work  of  hand  and  eye,  soever  cunning,  could 
produce  this  sorcery  without  the  direction  of  a  master  sentiment  of  magnetic  power? 

“The  true  purpose  of  the  painter,”  according  to  Inness,  “is  simply  to  reproduce 
in  other  minds  the  impression  which  a  scene  has  made  upon  him.  A  work  of  art 
does  not  appeal  to  the  intellect.  It  does  not  appeal  to  the  moral  sense.  Its  aim  is 
not  to  instruct,  not  to  edify,  but  to  awaken  an  emotion.  This  emotion  may  be  one  of 
love,  of  pity,  of  veneration,  of  hate,  of  pleasure,  or  of  pain;  but  it  must  be  a  single 
emotion,  if  the  work  has  unity,  as  every  sueh  work  should  have,  and  the  true  beauty 
of  the  work  consists  in  the  beauty  of  the  sentiment  or  emotion  which  it  inspires.  Its 
real  greatness  consists  in  the  quality  and  the  force  of  this  emotion.  Details  in  the 
picture  must  be  elaborated  only  enough  fully  to  reproduce  the  impression  which  the 
artist  wishes  to  reproduce.  When  more  than  this  is  done,  the  impression  is  weakened 
or  lost,  and  we  see  simply  an  array  of  external  things,  which  may  be  very  cleverly 
painted  and  may  look  very  real,  but  which  do  not  make  an  artistic  painting.  The 
effort  and  the  difficulty  of  an  artist  are  to  combine  the  two,  namely,  to  make  the 
thought  clear  and  preserve  the  unity  of  impression.  ” 

Upon  another  point  he  held;  “There  is  a  notion  that  objective  force  is  incon¬ 
sistent  with  poetic  representation.  But  this  is  a  very  grave  error.  What  is  often 
called  poetry  is  a  mere  jingle  of  rhyme — intellectual  dishwater.  The  poetic  quality 
is  not  obtained  by  eschewing  any  truths  of  fact  or  of  nature  which  can  be  included  in 
a  harmony  or  real  representation.  Poetry  is  the  vision  of  reality.” 

In  these  two  utterances  one  may  discern  a  perfectly  simple  and  lucid  exposition 
of  the  formula  by  which,  for  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  George  Inness  had  been  gradu¬ 
ally  working  forward  toward  the  results  embodied  in  his  latest  works.  Reduced  to 
a  single  paragraph  it  is;  “Put  just  enough  in  a  picture  to  present  the  main  theme 
without  distracting  attention  from  this  centre  of  interest,  and  take  no  wanton  liber¬ 
ties  with  the  subject  in  order  to  produce  an  artificial  effect  at  the  expense  of  truth.” 


VII. 

The  most  original  genius  whom  the  art  of  England  ever  produced  was  J.  W.  M. 
Turner.  This  strange  and  inspired  man,  born  in  a  squalid  barber-shop  in  a  dirty 
London  court,  deprived  of  every  advantage  of  education  by  the  poverty  of  his  father, 
tainted,  perhaps,  by  the  madness  of  his  poor,  demented  mother,  rose  resplendent 
from  the  mire  which  bred  him,  as  the  beautiful  old  fable  tells  us  that  the  phoenix 
soars,  revivified,  from  the  ashes  of  its  own  destruction,  by  that  same  force  which  the 
phoenix  typifies.  The  fable  of  the  phoenix  has  been  variously  expounded  by  various 
dealers  in  idle  phrases,  but  if  it  be  analyzed  from  the  standpoint  of  common  sense, 
its  meaning,  it  seems  to  me,  must  be  plain.  It  is  the  type  of  human  energy  and 
resolution,  inspired  by  the  confidence  which  comes  of  innate  power,  which  defies 
disaster  and  mocks  misfortune  by  its  indomitable  faith  in  its  own  potentialities. 
The  man  who  has  something  in  him  will  work  it  out,  no  matter  what  obstacles  he 
may  find  opposed  to  him. 


19 


An  old  gentleman  whom  I  knew  in  London,  had  known  Turner  very  well.  He 
had  formed  a  very  remarkable  collection  of  his  pictures  and  sketches,  and  had  pur¬ 
chased  most  of  them  personally  from  the  artist.  He  was  one  of  the  last  men  who 
had  visited  Turner’s  house  before  he  wandered  off  to  Chelsea,  to  die  in  a  garret  over¬ 
looking  the  Thames,  which  he  loved  to  watch  making  its  shining  pathway  to  the  sea. 
This  gentleman  told  me  that  on  one  occasion,  while  Turner  was  signing  for  him  a  set 
of  proofs  of  the  “Liber  Studiorum,”  which  he  had  purchased,  he  made  some  remark 
which  brought  this  work  into  comparison  with  the  “Liber  Veritatis”  of  Claude 
Lorraine. 

“That,”  said  Turner,  in  his  rude,  brutal  way,  “is  no  praise  for  me  and  no  honor 
to  Claude.  D — n  the  proofs  !  I’ll  sign  no  more  to-day.  ”  Nor  would  he. 

In  the  same  way,  the  comparisons  which  have  been  instituted,  at  certain  sources, 
between  George  Inness  and  Corot  and  Rousseau,  are  both  unjust  and  absurd.  As  I 
have  shown,  Inness  undoubtedly  was  impressed  by  the  movement  in  the  van  of  which 
the  two  great  Frenchmen  figured,  but  the  profit  he  derived  from  their  example  was 
that  of  suggestion  solely.  His  style  was  as  distinct  from  theirs  as  their  styles  were 
from  each  other.  He  appreciated  and  esteemed  them,  as  his  frequent  criticisms 
showed.  In  a  comparison  of  Meissonier  and  Corot  he  remarked:  “If  a  painter  could 
unite  Meissonier’s  careful  reproduction  of  details  with  Corot’s  inspirational  power,  he 
would  be  the  very  god  of  art.  But  Corot’s  art  is  higher  than  Meissonier’s.  Let  Corot 
paint  a  rainbow,  and  his  work  reminds  you  of  the  poet’s  description,  ‘  The  rainbow  is 
the  spirit  of  flowers.’  Let  Meissonier  paint  a  rainbow,  and  his  work  reminds  you  of  a 
definition  in  chemistry.  The  one  is  poetic  truth,  the  other  is  scientific  truth;  the 
former  is  msthetic,  the  latter  analytic.”  Of  Millet  he  said:  “Millet  is  one  of  those 
artistic  angels  whose  aim  was  to  represent  pure  and  holy  human  sentiments — senti¬ 
ments  which  speak  of  home,  of  love,  of  labor,  of  sorrow,  and  so  on.  Many  of  his 
pictures,  indeed,  display  weaknesses  to  which  minds  like  his  are  at  times  particularly 
liable,  as  though  the  strength  of  flesh  and  blood  had  overcome  the  power  of  the 
spirit.  But  he  is  the  very  first  in  that  class  of  painters  who  reproduce  such  senti¬ 
ments  in  their  paintings,  and  in  his  paintings  do  we  find  the  highest  of  these 
sentiments.  ” 

“  Rousseau,”  he  said,  “  was  perhaps  the  greatest  French  landscape  painter,”  but 
it  was  with  Corot  and  Daubigny  that  he  always  expressed  the  closest  sympathy. 
They  came  closer  to  the  soul  of  nature,  while  Rousseau’s  art  was  clouded  by  the 
morbid  turn  of  his  mind,  which  ultimately  resulted  in  the  overthrow  of  his  reason. 
To  Decamps  and  Delacroix  he  gave  a  high  rating.  Turner  he  considered  not  a  genius 
of  the  first  order,  not  as  great  and  genuine  an  artist  as  Constable,  but  “  a  great  scene 
painter.”  In  all  his  criticism  Inness  was  straightforward  and  outspoken  with  the 
voice  of  personal  conviction.  The  last  printed  utterances  of  his  were  made  some 
twelve  months  before,  and  in  part  reported  verbatim  in  a  New  York  newspaper  after 
his  death.  This  passage  will  serve  to  afford  a  good  idea  of  his  simple  and  direct 
expression  of  his  opinions  on  the  current  conditions  of  and  movements  in  art: 

“  Mind  yoi:,”  he  continued,  “  there  is  an  immense  deal  of  fine  art  in  these  French 


20 


exhibitions,  but  there  is  also  very  much  that  is  preposterous.  To  obtain  recognition, 
however,  it  must  be  French.  Of  the  many  pictures  the  French  send  over  here  I 
have  seen  nothing  very  good.  Of  Cazin,  whom  the  Americans  are  now  fussing  about, 
I  have  seen  nothing  remarkable,  though  some  pretty  pictures.  ” 

“  But  you  are  not  opposed  to  exhibitions,  Mr.  Inness?” 

“Yes,  I  am;  to  competitions  in  art  and  the  awarding  of  medals  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing.  These  exhibitions  are  not  made  with  sufficient  care.  They  are  too  much  of 
a  jumble,  so  that  the  pictures  exhibited  continually  conflict  with  one  another.  When 
it  comes  to  the  awards,  they  are  well  enough  in  a  school  where  the  master  has  certain 
methods  and  ideas  of  his  own,  because  he  can  judge  which  pupils  come  nearest  to 
those  methods  and  ideas.  But  the  artist  comes  out  as  an  individual.  Who  is  going 
to  judge  of  his  work  when  it  is  acknowledged  that  some  who  have  proved  the  greatest 
have  not  been  recognized  at  all  during  their  lifetimes.?  No,  the  awarding  of  a  medal 
to  a  work  of  art  is  reducing  art  to  a  sphere  of  mechanics.  Every  artist  has  his  own 
feeling,  and,  if  he  develops  it,  may  be  a  great  master  in  his  way,  yet  the  other 
schools,  the  men  with  other  methods  and  ideas,  will  not  recognize  the  merit  of  his 
work.” 

“  But  can  this  matter  of  feeling  be  explained  in  words?” 

“  I  think  so.  I  have  made  a  thorough  and  complete  theory  of  it.  I  am  seventy 
years  of  age,  and  the  whole  study  of  my  life  has  been  to  find  out  what  it  is  that  is  in 
myself — what  is  this  thing  we  call  life,  and  how  does  it  operate.  Upon  these  ques¬ 
tions  my  ideas  have  become  clearer  and  clearer,  and  what  I  hold  is  that  the  Creator 
never  makes  any  two  things  alike,  or  any  two  men  alike.  Every  man  has  a  different 
impression  of  what  he  sees,  and  that  impression  constitutes  feeling,  and  every  man 
has  a  different  feeling. 

“  Now,  there  has  sprung  up  a  new  school,  a  mere  passing  fad,  called  impression¬ 
ism,  the  followers  of  which  pretend  to  study  from  nature  and  paint  it  as  it  is.  All 
these  sorts  of  things  I  am  down  on.  I  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  them.  They  are 
shams.” 


VIII. 

George  Inness  was  the  fifth  in  descent  of  thirteen  children  by  one  mother.  Of 
these,  six  are  yet  living.  On  the  father’s  side  he  came  of  Scotch  stock.  The  father 
was  an  energetic  and  thrifty  man,  with  fairly  liberal  ideas.  The  mother  was  a  strict 
housewife,  and  a  rigid  member  of  the  Methodist  persuasion,  who  brought  her  chil¬ 
dren  up  in  the  closest  conformance  to  that  creed.  From  earliest  childhood  the  artist 
and  the  thinker  of  the  future  was  bound  down  to  the  narrowest  and  severest  limits  of 
moral  and  religious  duty. 

While  yet  a  babe  in  arms  his  father  sold  the  Newburg  farm  and  transported  his 
family  in  a  sloop — for  it  was  before  the  days  of  Hudson  River  steamboats — to  New 
York  City,  where  he  resumed  the  business  from  which  he  had  retired  on  account  of 
ill-health,  prosecuting  it  for  some  four  or  five  years.  His  health  again  failing,  he 
abandoned  it  once  more,  and  carried  his  family  over  to  New  Jersey.  He  purchased 
property  at  a  location  which  is  now  almost  the  centre  of  a  great  manufacturing  city, 
but  which  was  then  on  the  threshold  of  a  beautiful  and  picturesque  country.  The 
roomy  old  house  stood  upon  elevated  ground,  in  twenty-five  acres  of  farm  land,  and 
commanded  a  far-reaching  view  of  the  vast  salt  meadows,  alive  with  wild  fowl,  and 


21 


of  the  farms  and  hills  on  the  other  hand.  Newark  at  that  time  was  a  rather  bustling 
country  town,  connected  with  Jersey  City  and  New  York  by  stage  lines  which  made 
two  daily  trips  to  and  fro.  It  was  not  even  on  the  regular  line  of  travel  between  the 
then  two  great  cities  of  the  United  States,  New  York  and  Philadelphia. 

The  exact  location  of  the  Inness  home  in  Newark  was  on  High  and  Nesbitt  streets, 
now  Central  avenue.  In  1837  the  farm  portion  of  this  property  was  cut  up  into 
streets  and  lots,  but  the  family  still  resided  in  the  mansion  until  about  1843,  when  the 
father  again  removed  them  to  New  York.  It  was  during  this  interval  that  George 
received  such  education  as  the  schools  and  Academy  of  Newark  afforded.  When  he 
was  in  the  thirteenth  or  fourteenth  year  of  his  age,  the  principal  of  the  Academy  in¬ 
formed  his  father  that  it  was  useless  to  keep  him  at  school  any  longer,  as  he  spent 
his  time  mostly  in  drawing  pictorial  figures  on  his  slate,  instead  of  using  it  for 
mathematical  purposes.  Accordingly  he  was  taken  away,  and  his  father  placed  him 
in  his  store,  in  one  of  his  buildings  in  Washington  street,  Newark,  which  he  had 
opened  for  this  purpose,  intending  to  bring  him  up  in  the  grocery  line.  But  his  ar¬ 
tistic  mind,  which  was  then  developing,  could  not  adapt  itself  to  the  petty  details  of 
such  a  business,  and  his  carelessness  and  indifference  made  it  manifest  that  in  an  em¬ 
ployment  of  this  character  he  was  a  failure.  Therefore  this  project  was  soon  aban¬ 
doned,  and  he  was  placed  with  the  drawing-master.  Barker,  to  receive  lessons  in 
drawing  and  elementary  painting.  Some  of  his  efforts  in  this  latter  branch  are  still 
in  existence. 

It  was  not  very  long  before  Mr.  Barker  notified  his  father  that  George  had  re¬ 
ceived  from  him  all  the  education  in  his  line  he  could  impart,  and  he  was  then  sent  to 
New  York  to  learn  engraving.  Now  followed  his  experience  as  has  been  previously 
detailed,  ending  in  his  study  under  Gignoux,  eked  out  with  a  few  instructions  from 
Asher  B.  Durand. 

His  elder  brother,  James  A.  Inness,  who  is  now  a  resident  of  this  city,  was  at  that 
time  living  at  Pottsville,  Pa.,  and  there  George  visited  him,  and  painted  some  of  his 
earliest  pictures.  His  New  York  residence  had  been  at  the  Astor  House,  where  he  had 
paid  his  board  in  pictures.  He  did  much  sketching  in  Schuylkill  County,  and  there 
is  record  of  a  campaign  banner  which  he  painted  for  the  Henry  Clay  Club,  of  Potts¬ 
ville,  during  this  visit,  and  which  came  to  grief  from  being  rolled  up  before  the  color 
was  dry.  After  his  return  to  New  York,  he  did  what  most  artists  are  prone  to  do 
when  they  can  scarcely  earn  a  living  for  themselves — he  married.  Misfortune  at¬ 
tended  this  union  from  the  start.  The  bride  contracted  a  cold  upon  her  wedding 
day,  which  developed  into  a  consumption,  of  which  she  died  six  months  later.  Before 
he  made  his  first  visit  to  Europe  he  married  again,  the  lady  being  the  widow  who 
survives  him. 

All  of  these  early  years  were  years  of  bitter  struggle  with  him,  and  his  family 
had  more  than  once  to  come  to  his  assistance.  The  production  of  pot-boilers  was  a 
recourse  to  which  he  was  frequently  compelled.  Some  of  these  are  still  in  existence, 
feeble  copies  in  color  of  engravings  of  the  day,  in  which,  however,  a  certain  skill  of 
hand  already  revealed  itself.  At  one  time  three  of  his  elder  brothers  kept  him  afloat 


22 


for  a  year  by  buying  whatever  he  painted,  and  disposing  of  the  pictures  where  and 
how  they  could.  Neither  then,  nor  ever  in  his  after  life,  had  he  the  remotest  idea  of 
the  value  of  money,  and  to  relieve  him  of  one  distress  was  simply  to  provide  him  with 
an  opportunity  to  fall  into  another.  His  contempt  for  the  mercantile  element  of  life 
was  profound  and  outspoken.  One  of  his  earliest  theories  was  that  trade  was  under 
the  obligation  to  sustain  art,  and  that  merchants  were  only  created  to  support  artists. 

One  of  his  elder  brothers,  Mr.  James  A.  Inness,  in  furnishing  some  details  of  his 
life,  says: 

“  I  have  alluded  to  my  brother’s  metaphysical  labors.  These  were  taken  up  more 
as  a  relaxation  after  excessive  efforts  in  the  field  of  his  art,  than  as  a  regular  pursuit. 
However,  he  was  at  all  times  fond  of  discussion  on  social  and  theological  problems, 
and  at  one  time  told  me  that  in  his  early  days,  if  his  health  had  permitted,  he  would 
have  become  absorbed  in  metaphysical  studies.  His  environment  during  his  childhood 
and  youth  was  extremely  well  calculated  to  give  such  a  tendency  to  his  active  tem¬ 
perament  and  brain.  His  mother,  who  died  in  his  fifteenth  year,  was  a  Methodist, 
and  brought  up  her  children  in  strict  compliance  with  the  discipline  and  requirements 
of  the  Methodism  of  that  day.  His  aunt,  who  afterward  became  his  step-mother, 
was  as  strict  a  Baptist,  and  an  earnest  Controversialist,  whilst  their  brother,  his  uncle, 
was  as  firm  a  Universalist  and  as  uncompromising  in  his  belief.  So  religious  topics 
became  almost  a  daily  subject  of  conversation,  dispute,  and  a  mind  of  George’s  char¬ 
acter  would  naturally  commence  early  in  life  an  investigation  of  the  points  in  dispute, 
and  to  search  the  scriptures  for  the  truths  thereof,  probably  laying  thereby  the 
foundation  of  the  Swedenborgian  faith,  to  which  he  became  attached  in  later  years.” 

Of  George  Inness’s  children,  one,  a  daughter,  died  while  the  family  resided  in 
Rome,  and  is  buried  there  in  the  Protestant  cemetery.  His  son,  George  Inness,  is  a 
painter  of  great  ability.  His  daughter  is  the  wife  of  the  sculptor,  Jonathan  Scott 
Hartley,  N.  A. 


IX. 

It  would,  of  course,  be  impossible  to  trace,  even  with  approximate  accuracy, 
the  collections  or  individual  owners  of  pictures  by  George  Inness.  Previous  to  his 
later  period  he  produced  most  prolifically,  and  his  works  were  scattered  far  and 
wide.  He  told  how  he  found  and  bought  one  of  his  earlier  paintings  in  the  City 
of  Mexico ;  and  he  landed  upon  others  in  the  most  unexpected  places — in  Cali¬ 
fornia,  Florida,  Virginia,  and  the  Pennsylvania  mountains.  To  a  man  who  lives 
by  his  art,  his  productions,  until  his  reputation  is  established,  are  foundlings;  they 
pass  from  his  hands  to  private  buyers,  to  dealers,  into  auctions,  and  he  soon  loses 
all  trace  of  them.  It  is  only  when  his  fame  has  come  to  him  that  a  record  is 
kept,  and  even  then  it  is  far  from  perfect.  During  the  last  dozen  years  of  his  life 
Inness,  while  even  more  industrious  than  in  his  youth,  issued  fewer  evidences  of 
his  industry  to  the  world,  because  he  effaced  and  repainted  so  much,  and  left  so 
many  works  in  a  state  which  he  considered  incomplete.  The  two  hundred  and  forty 
canvases  sold  by  his  executors,  and  which  represented  the  collection  he  left  in  his 
studio,  were  probably  but  a  small  part  of  the  numbers  which  he  discarded  and 
destroyed. 


23 


The  largest  single  collection  of  Inness  pictures  is  undoubtedly  that  of  Mr. 
Thomas  B.  Clarke,  of  New  York,  to  which  I  have  already  alluded.  It  is  composed 
of  works  of  the  highest  choice.  The  collection  formed  by  the  late  Mr.  George  I. 
Seney  was  partially  broken  up  previous  to  that  gentleman’s  death,  and  the  remainder 
dispersed  at  the  sales  rendered  necessary  by  the  settlement  of  his  estate.  The 
fine  collection  of  Mr.  Richard  H.  Halstead  *  was  sold  a  month  before  the  disposition 
of  the  studio  collection  by  the  Inness  executors.  There  is  a  strong  group  of  the 
artist’s  works  in  the  Potter  Palmer  collection,  in  Chicago,  and  he  is  represented 
there  in  the  collections  of  Mr.  James  W.  Ellsworth,  Mr.  S.  N.  Nickerson  and  Mr. 
Martin  A.  Ryerson,  among  others.  Still  other  appreciators  and  supporters  of  his 
art  are  to  be  found  in  Mr.  T.  B.  Walker  and  Mr.  T.  P.  Wilson,  of  Minneapolis,  Minn.; 
Mr.  W.  K.  Thaw,  of  Pittsbitrgh,  Pa.;  Mr.  L.  Z.  Leiter,  of  Washington,  D.  C.;  Mr, 
Lewis  H.  Blair,  of  Richmond,  Va.;  Mr.  R.  B.  Angus  and  Sir  William  Van  Horne,  of 
Montreal,  Canada,  and  Mr.  F.  J.  Hecker,  of  Detroit,  Mich.  The  galleries  of  the 
New  York  and  Brooklyn  collectors  are  naturally  rich  in  examples  of  Inness,  notably 
those  of  Mr.  William  T.  Evans,  Mr.  George  A.  Hearn,  Mr.  Benjamin  Altman,  Mr, 
Frederic  Bonner,  Mr.  Washington  Wilson,  Mr.  T.  J.  Briggs,  Mr.  W.  H.  Fuller,  Mr. 
Nelson  Robinson,  Mr.  Henry  Sampson,  Mr.  Edson  Bradley,  Mr.  Samuel  Untermeyer, 
Mr.  E.  J.  Chaffee,  Mr.  H.  R.  McLane  and  Dr.  J.  E.  Ferdinand.  He  is  represented  at 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  by  a  fine  example,  the  gift  to  the  Museum  of  Mr. 
George  A.  Hearn;  at  the  Long  Island  Historical  Society  by  a  noble  canvas,  pre¬ 
sented  by  Mr.  George  I.  Seney;  at  the  Corcoran  and  other  public  galleries  by 
purchases  or  donations.  In  Brooklyn,  so  prolific  of  fine  collections,  examples  of 
Inness  are  to  be  found  in  those  of  Mr.  Henry  T,  Chapman,  Jr.,  Mr.  Edward  Olds, 
Mr.  George  J.  Molloy,  and  many  more.  The  names  of  purchasers  at  the  last  sales  * 
will  furnish  further  data  on  this  special  point. 

The  location  of  works  owned  by  collectors  of  more  remote  date  is  entirely 
problematical.  Among  the  artist’s  earlier  patrons  were  Mr.  Thomas  Wigglesworth, 
Mr.  Maynard,  Mr.  Thomas  Appleton,  of  Boston,  and  ex-Governor  Ames,  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts.  Other  Boston  collectors  who  owned  examples  are  Mrs.  S.  D.  Warren, 
Mrs.  D.  P.  Kimball  and  Mr.  O.  H.  Durell.  There  is  record  of  pictures  by  him  in  the 
collections  of  Mr.  H.  P.  Kidder,  of  Boston,  and  other  New  England  collectors,  but 
what  hands  they  may  now  be  in,  or  where,  I  cannot  state.  At  one  time  Inness’s 
pictures  owed  much  of  their  distribution  to  a  curious  character  of  his  day,  Marcus 
Spring.  Spring  belonged  to  the  New  England  family  which  produced  two  notable 
preachers  and  religious  polemists  well  known  in  New  York  and  throughout  the 
country,  and  was  practically  the  founder  of  the  colony  of  Eaglewood,  N.  J.  He 
there  conducted  a  military  school  and  formulated  the  idea  upon  which  our  present 
militia  system  is  based.  He  was  a  great  admirer  of  William  Page,  for  whom  he 
built  a  studio  at  Eaglewood,  and  a  couple  of  years  later  took  a  fancy  to  Inness  and 
induced  him  to  settle  there.  Spring  provided  the  money — or  credit — and  Inness  paid 


*See  appendix. 

24 


him  in  pictures,  which  Spring  disposed  of  as  occasion  offered.  Some  of  these  Spring 
pictures  come  to  the  surface  from  time  to  time,  but  the  artist’s  significant  work  was 
that  of  his  later  years.  He  was  not  a  genius  of  that  class  which,  having  gained  its 
zenith,  remains  fixed  there  or  falls  into  declining  grooves.  His  was  a  fire  which  age 
could  not  wither  nor  custom  stale,  and  even  as  time  sapped  his  vital  forces  he  grew 
ever  greater,  younger  and  more  powerful  in  the  vital  spirit  of  his  art.  This  is  not  to 
cast  an  aspersion  on  his  works  of  the  Medfield  and  Eaglewood  periods,  for  they 
remain  worthy  of  the  hand  that  produced  them,  but  the  greatness  of  an  artist  must 
be  measured  by  the  organic  greatness  of  his  art,  and  that  of  George  Inness  was  most 
powerful  and  splendid  toward  the  end.  He  carried  to  his  grave  the  adherence  to 
and  practice  of  his  theory,  that  it  was  the  duty  of  every  man  to  himself  to  live, 
study,  learn,  improve  and  march  with  his  face  to  the  sun  when  it  was  declining  in 
the  west  as  steadily  as  he  had  faced  it  when  it  rose  above  his  horizon. 


25 


ADDENDA. 


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f. 


Characteristics  of  George  Inness. 


GEORGE  WILLIAM  SHELDON. 

{By  permission,  from  The  Century  Magazine,  February,  iSgj.) 


WHAT  George  Inness  most  enjoyed,  in  his  hours  of  ease,  was  talking  and  writing 
on  metaphysical  subjects  like  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  of  evolution,  and  the 
distinction  between  instinct  and  reason.  He  had  neither  the  time  nor  the  inclination 
to  become  well  read  in  these  matters,  but  he  would  wade  through  a  treatise  of  Arch¬ 
bishop  Whately’s  or  John  Stuart  Mill’s,  and  industriously  record  the  more  notable  of 
his  animadversions.  Certain  he  was  that  man  could  not  have  descended  from  the 
ape,  that  a  brute  must  always  remain  a  brute,  that  no  class  or  function  could  be 
merged  in  another  class  or  function.  For  years  he  studied  the  science  of  numbers — 
into  which  Swedenborg  also  made  many  incursions — and  in  several  of  his  manuscripts 
he  demonstrated  that  the  number  one  represents  the  infinite;  the  number  two,  con¬ 
junction;  the  number  three,  potency;  the  number  four,  substance;  the  number  five, 
germination;  the  number  six,  material  condition,  and  so  on.  And  wherever  these 
numbers  occurred  in  the  Bible,  he  was  ready,  in  conversation  or  with  his  pen,  to 
prove  their  symbolical  significance.  So  fond  was  he  of  these  speculations  that,  had 
he  been  rich,  he  said,  he  would  have  pursued  them  to  the  exclusion  of  painting.  In 
reading  a  manuscript  of  Inness’s  it  was  not  always  easy  to  understand  his  meaning. 
His  sentences  were  long  and  involved,  and  lucidity  of  expression  suffered  from  haste 
and  inexperience.  The  art  of  writing  he  had  never  mastered,  principally  because  he 
never  really  cared  that  what  he  wrote  should  be  read.  The  extracts  from  his  manu¬ 
scripts  which  I  have  contributed  to  various  periodicals  are  sometimes  obscure  in  spite 
of  my  efforts  to  get  him  to  explain  them.  “I  don’t  expect  everybody  to  understand 
these  things,”  he  protested.  On  one  occasion  he  showed  me  an  essay  of  perhaps 
five  thousand  words,  on  Zola’s  “  L’Assommoir,”  in  which  he  had  endeavored  to  prove 
that  this  French  novel  was  the  greatest  temperance  tract  ever  published. 

In  his  conversation,  however,  especially  when  answering  questions  on  art  matters, 
he  was  particularly  concise,  forcible  and  clear;  and  if  he  had  cared  to  be  reported 
often  enough  by  a  competent  person,  the  result  might  have  been  a  treatise  on  paint¬ 
ing  more  useful  than  Leonardo’s.  I  never  knew  a  man  whose  off-hand  thoughts  were 
so  well  worth  preserving;  and  I  never  took  a  stroll  with  him,  or  welcomed  him  at  my 
house,  or  met  him  at  his  own,  without  wishing  that  some  invisible  scribe  might  make 
a  stenographic  report  of  his  talk,  and,  after  submitting  it  for  editorial  revision,  print 
it  for  the  benefit  of  art  students. 

“A  work  of  art,”  he  said,  “  is  beautiful  if  the  sentiment  is  beautiful;  it  is  great  if 
the  sentiment  is  vital.  Details  are  to  be  elaborated  only  enough  to  produce  the  sen- 

29 


timent  desired.  A  picture  in  which  the  evident  intention  has  been  to  reach  the  truth 
is  the  picture  that  the  true  artist  loves.  The  sleek  polish  of  lackadaisical  sentiment, 
and  the  puerilities  of  impossible  conditions,  are  never  admirable.  Here  is  a  pencil 
sketch  of  my  own — a  young  girl  about  to  slip  into  a  brook  from  the  overhanging 
trunk  of  a  tree.  She  is  entirely  disrobed.  I  made  this  sketch  with  the  purest  kind  of 
motive,  feeling  that  the  subject  was  beautiful,  and  that  in  no  other  way  could  I  con¬ 
vey  the  sentiment  that  I  had  chosen.  I  shall  put  it  on  canvas,  keeping  the  back¬ 
ground  cool  and  sweet,  and  trying  to  idealize  as  much  as  possible.  Such  a  subject, 
so  treated,  is  as  pure  as  any  other.  Moreover,  I  paint  the  girl  at  a  distance  of  thirty 
or  forty  feet,  which  gives  at  once  a  subdued  effect.  The  mind  does  not  receive  the 
full  impression  of  an  object  looked  at  unless  this  object  is  viewed  at  a  distance  of 
three  times  its  own  length  or  height;  and  if  it  is  in  the  midst  of  accessories,  a  pro¬ 
portionate  distance  should  be  allowed.” 

Swedenborgianism  interested  him  as  a  metaphysical  system,  especially  in  its 
science  of  correspondences;  but  he  never  formulated  for  himself  a  theological  creed, 
because,  as  he  said,  a  man’s  creed  changes  with  his  states  of  mind,  and  the  formula¬ 
tion  made  to-day  becomes  useless  to-morrow.  He  never  doubted  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  nor  felt  that  other  proof  of  it  w'as  necessary  beyond  the  fact  that  men  gen¬ 
erally  believe  and  have  believed  in  immortality.  “The  consciousness  of  immor¬ 
tality,”  he  declared,  “is  wrapped  up  in  all  the  experiences  of  my  life,  and  this  to  me 
is  the  end  of  the  argument.  Man’s  unhappiness  arises  from  disobedience  to  the 
monitions  within  him.  The  principles  that  underlie  art  are  spiritual  principles — the 
principle  of  unity  and  the  principle  of  harmony.  Christ  never  uttered  a  word  that 
forbade  the  creating  or  the  enjoying  of  sensuous  form.  The  fundamental  necessity 
of  the  artist’s  life  is  the  cultivation  of  his  moral  powers,  and  the  loss  of  those  powers 
is  the  loss  of  artistic  power.  The  efforts  of  the  Catholic  Church  to  excite  the  imagi¬ 
nation  of  worshippers  are  admirable,  because  the  imagination  is  the  life  of  the  soul. 
Art  is  an  essence  as  subtle  as  the  humanity  of  God,  and,  like  it,  is  personal  only  to 
love,  a  stranger  to  the  worldly-minded,  a  myth  to  the  mere  intellect.  I  would  not 
give  a  fig  for  art  ideas  except  as  they  represent  what  I,  in  common  with  all  men, 
need  most — the  good  of  our  practice  in  the  art  of  life.  Rivers,  streams,  the  rippling 
brook,  hillsides,  sky  and  clouds,  all  things  that  we  see,  will  convey  the  sentiment  of 
the  highest  art  if  we  are  in  the  love  of  God  and  the  desire  of  the  truth.” 

Sometimes,  when  feeling  a  subject  deeply,  he  expressed  himself  in  verse  as  well 
as  on  canvas.  A  landscape  called  “Breaking  Up,”  in  which  storm-clouds  were  dis¬ 
solving  over  the  crest  of  a  mountain,  an  impression  dashed  off  in  four  hours,  sug¬ 
gested  to  him  a  poetical  “  Address  of  the  Clouds  to  the  Earth.”  Shelley’s  clouds 
wandered  in  thick  flocks,  shepherded  by  the  unwilling  wind.  Inness’s  clouds  were 
brothers,  and  benefactors  of  the  earth,  wooers  of  the  wind  that  made  groves  and 
meadows  ring  with  joyous  laughter.  In  another  landscape  autumn  leaves  are  falling 
into  a  river  and  floating  along  toward  the  sea.  Some  lines  of  symbolism  describe 
each  leaf  as  “  a  little  truth  from  off  the  tree  of  life  ”  going  to  join  other  truths  that 
had  preceded  it,  and  to  report  progress  in  the  interest  of  the  brotherhood  of  truths. 
Rhyme  and  metre  do  not  count  in  Inness’s  poetry.  He  did  not  wish  them  to  count. 

The  hero  of  a  novel  of  Jane  Austen’s  says:  “  I  like  a  fine  prospect.  I  do  not 
like  crooked,  twisted  or  blasted  trees.  I  admire  those  that  are  tall,  straight  and 
flourishing,  lam  not  fond  of  nettles,  or  thistles,  or  heath  blossoms.”  One  summer 
afternoon,  when  Inness  and  I  were  walking  in  Montclair,  N.  J.— his  home  and  mine 
— near  the  foot  of  its  beautiful  mountain,  where  the  “prospect”  was  particularly 
fine,  the  subject  that  engaged  his  attention  was  the  delightful  gradation  of  grays  in 
an  old  rail  fence;  and  on  another  occasion,  when  driving  down  that  mountain,  from 

30 


the  green  slopes  of  which  the  trees  and  cottages  of  Montclair  appear  so  picturesquely 
grouped,  he  feasted  his  eyes  on  the  rich,  creamy  tones  produced  by  sunlight  shining 
through  the  hairs  of  our  gray  horse’s  tail.  No  natural  object  was  ugly  to  him.  So 
beautiful  was  the  meanest  natural  object  that  no  other  natural  object  seemed  more 
beautiful  than  it.  He  fondly  loved  the  gnarled  writhings  of  old  apple-trees,  the 
affectionate  drooping  of  their  branches  toward  the  earth  that  nourished  them,  the 
crooked,  twisted  olive-trees  of  Italy,  which  told  stories  of  man’s  relations  with  them. 
And  the  landscapes  that  he  painted — civilized  landscapes,  not  savage  and  untamed — 
pleased  him  the  most  when  they  most  communicated  the  sentiment  of  humanity. 

In  his  “  Life  of  Turner,”  Mr.  Hamerton  quotes  “the  following  opinion  expressed 
by  an  intelligent  and  accomplished  American  artist,  Mr.  George  Inness;” 

“Turner’s  ‘Slave-ship’  is  the  most  infernal  piece  of  claptrap  ever  painted. 
There  is  nothing  in  it.  It  has  as  much  to  do  with  human  affections  and  thought  as  a 
ghost.  It  is  not  even  a  bouquet  of  color.  The  color  is  harsh,  disagreeable,  dis¬ 
cordant. 

“  These  views,  ”  says  Mr.  Hamerton,  “while  interesting  for  their  frankness,  are 
severe;  and  their  severity  is  partly  due  to  reaction  against  Mr.  Ruskin’s  eloquent 
praises.”  I  remember  well  the  circumstances  in  which  Inness  spoke.  The  “Slave- 
ship,”  after  having  been  sold  by  Mr.  Ruskin,  had  just  been  removed  from  New  York, 
where  it  was  coolly  received,  to  Boston,  where  it  became  a  subject  of  hot  newspaper 
controversy.  I  casually  asked  Inness  what  he  thought  of  the  picture.  He  expressed 
himself  at  once  with  indignant  emphasis  and  in  the  most  unqualified  terms.  “  But 
has  it  no  value  as  color?”  I  asked.  “Not  the  least  in  the  world,”  he  replied.  “Its 
color  is  harsh,  disagreeable,  discordant.”  Mr.  Hamerton  is  mistaken  in  supposing 
that  Inness’s  severity  was  even  partly  due  to  reaction  against  Ruskin’s  enthusiastic 
commendation.  Inness  was  not  interested  in  Ruskin,  and  nothing  occupied  him  less 
than  the  lucubrations  of  art  critics.  When  he  discovered  insincerity  and  falseness  in 
what  might  have  been  a  great  picture,  he  became  angry;  he  detested  insincerity  and 
falseness.  Mr.  Hamerton  admits  that  the  introduction  into  the  canvas  of  the  sharks, 
the  manacles,  and  the  human  hand  and  leg,  is  so  horrible  as  to  revolt  him,  and  that 
the  color  is  crude. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  the  strength  and  activity  of  Inness’s  intellect,  because  these 
qualities  produced  and  explain  the  beauty  of  his  landscapes.  Art,  like  language,  is  a 
means  of  expressing  ideas,  and  in  the  work  of  George  Inness  the  ideas  are  great  and 
noble.  Most  of  the  pictures  in  the  dealers’  collections  could  be  described,  he  thought, 
by  the  phrase  “intellectual  dish-water.”  “  My  compositions,”  said  Beethoven,  “are 
not  intended  to  excite  the  pretty  little  emotions  of  women:  music  ought  to  strike  fire 
from  the  soul  of  a  man.  ”  This  is  what  Inness’s  pictures  do,  and  his  recreations  in 
theology,  poetry  and  metaphysics  are  less  interesting  in  themselves  than  in  the  evi¬ 
dence  they  afford  of  his  intellectual  power. 

His  struggle  was,  while  obtaining  objective  force,  not  to  lose  sentiment.  He 
sympathized  with  Corot,  who  had  had  the  same  struggle,  and  had  confessed  himself 
beaten.  He  admired  Daubigny,  because  in  the  struggle  Daubigny  had  been  less  un¬ 
successful.  He  deplored  in  Meissonier  the  wilful  sacrifice  of  sentiment  to  objective 
force.  He  considered  Millet  chiefly  as  a  painter  of  figures  rather  than  of  landscapes, 
and  he  thought  him  the  greatest  figure-painter  that  ever  lived,  because  his  figures 
best  and  most  often  expressed  the  tenderest  and  purest  sentiments  of  labor  and  of 
home,  with  just  enough  objective  force  for  perfect  lucidity.  He  almost  worshipped 
Rousseau,  because,  above  all  other  landscape  painters,  he  preserved  the  local  color  of 
trees,  of  grass  and  of  sky,  while  maintaining  the  general  tonality  of  his  picture.  He 
had  no  patience  with  Cabanel,  Bouguereau,  Lefebvre,  Verboeckhoven  and  scores  of 

31 


other  painters,  foreign  and  native,  who,  though  sought  by  American  collectors, 
seemed  animated  by  the  spirit  of  commercialism.  He  believed  in  objective  force, 
and  it  was  for  their  lack  of  it  that  he  criticized  the  young  painters  who  founded  the 
Society  of  American  Artists,  and  who  had  elected  him  a  member  of  their  organiza¬ 
tion.  Speaking  of  one  of  their  exhibitions,  he  said,  “The  poetic  quality  is  not  ob¬ 
tained  by  eschewing  any  truths  or  facts  of  nature  which  can  be  included  in  a  harmon¬ 
ious  representation;”  but  at  the  same  time  he  insisted  that  men  of  artistic  genius 
could  often  dash  off  an  impression  which  would  appeal  to  the  cultivated  spectator  as 
more  vital  than  the  most  laborious  efforts  of  artists  less  generously  endowed. 

In  his  sympathies  and  his  works  Inness  belonged  to  the  school  of  Barbizon.  As 
early  as  1850  a  few  of  his  paintings  had  found  their  way  to  the  United  States,  and 
Inness  was  the  first  American  landscapist  of  distinction  to  welcome  them.  He  soon 
went  to  France  to  study  the  methods  of  Millet,  Rousseau,  Daubigny  and  Corot.  Mil¬ 
let,  then  in  his  thirty-fifth  year — Inness  was  ten  years  younger — had  just  abandoned 
the  painting  of  nude  subjects,  the  sale  for  which  was  easy  and  rapid,  and  had  started 
upon  his  unique  career  as  the  interpreter  of  French  peasant  life.  When  Inness  re¬ 
turned  to  France,  sixteen  years  later,  the  Barbizon  school  was  making  itself  felt. 
Had  he  been  a  Frenchman  he  would  have  been  recognized  as  a  member  of  it,  with 
an  individuality  as  distinct  as  that  of  Daubigny,  At  this  time  he  fixed  his  method  of 
painting,  which  was  as  follows:  after  staining  the  white  canvas  with  Venetian  red, 
but  not  enough  to  lose  the  sense  of  transparency,  he  drew,  more  or  less  carefully, 
with  a  piece  of  charcoal,  the  outlines  of  the  coming  picture,  and  confirmed  them  with 
a  pencil,  putting  in  a  few  of  the  prominent  shadows  with  a  little  ivory-black  on  a 
brush.  His  principal  pigments  where  white,  Antwerp  blue,  Indian  red  and  lemon 
chrome.  He  began  anywhere  to  paint,  and  worked  in  mass  from  generals  to  particu¬ 
lars,  keeping  his  shadows  thin  and  transparent,  and  allowing  the  red  with  which  the 
canvas  was  stained  to  come  through  as  a  part  of  the  color.  When  the  pigments  were 
sufficiently  dry,  he  added  to  his  palette  cobalt,  brown  and  pink.  The  last  steps  were 
glazing,  delicate  touching  and  scumbling. 

George  Inness  had  no  jealousies  and  few  amusements.  He  smoked  some  and 
took  long  walks.  Often  he  painted  fifteen  hours  a  day.  On  the  dozen  or  more  can¬ 
vases  in  his  studio  he  worked  as  the  humor  seized  him,  going  from  one  to  another 
with  palette  and  maul-stick,  and  always  standing  when  painting.  He  had  two  styles, 
one  restrained,  the  other  impetuous;  and  as  he  grew  older  the  latter  prevailed.  Cor¬ 
rectness  of  linear  design  was  less  important  than  color,  atmosphere  and  chiaroscuro; 
but  first  in  importance  was  the  resolve  to  convey  distinctly  the  impressions  of  a  per¬ 
sonal,  vital  force.  Believing  that  he  obtained  with  oils  all  the  delicacy  of  water- 
colors,  and  much  strength  in  addition,  he  did  not  paint  in  water-colors.  His  sincerity, 
his  faith,  his  earnestness — all  that  which  escapes  like  a  perfume  from  his  works — in¬ 
creased  with  his  years,  and  with  the  honorable  fame  and  competence  that  he  had 
earned.  One  of  his  landscapes  is  called  “  Light  Triumphant  ” — a  name  that  fitly  de¬ 
scribed  them  all. 


32 


A  Reminiscence  of  George  Inness. 


ELLIOTT  DAINGERFIELD.* 

{By  permission,  from  The  Monthly  Illustrator,  March, 

O  a  young  man  in  any  of  the  professions  it  is  an  event  of  no  little  importance 


1  when  he  is  brought  into  close  contact  with  one  who  has  already  achieved  fame, 
and  the  loftiest  position  his  profession  offers.  It  was  with  a  certain  exaltation,  a 
quickened  hopefulness,  that  I  met  George  Inness  in  the  early  days  of  ’85,  when  his 
own  power  was  reaching  its  summit,  and  his  works  were  glowing  with  that  unusual 
lustre  which  makes  them  the  most  dignified  efforts  in  American  Art. 

When,  for  the  first  few  weeks  of  my  acquaintance,  he  failed  to  remember  me — 
even  the  very  name  was  lost  to  him — there  was  in  my  mind  no  sense  of  resentment. 
One  with  quick  perception  could  readily  see  that  Inness  had  no  interest  in  the 
external  man — he  was  often  unconscious  of  himself:  the  real  ego  was  that  great 
striving  quantity  unseen  with  eyes,  the  soul,  the  heart,  the  brain  of  a  man,  and 
through  the  expressions  of  these,  only,  could  he  discover  himself  or  recognize  the 
individuality  in  another.  Day  after  day  I  went  into  his  studio,  only  two  doors 
removed  from  my  own,  and  there,  watching  the  progress  of  numerous  canvases  in 
silence,  and  with  the  sort  of  reverence  one  must  feel  in  the  presence  of  genius,  grew 
up  a  knowledge  of  the  man  and  the  mighty  engine  of  his  mind,  its  purposes  and 
achievements,  which  will  ever  remain  a  heritage  of  strength  in  the  struggles  of  my 
own  life. 

Invincible  is  perhaps  the  one  word  which  defines  George  Inness’s  character. 
Arrogant,  he  has  been  called,  but  falsely;  egotistical,  selfish,  and  all  the  other 
phrases  that  unsuccessful  jealous  minds  usually  apply  to  those  who  are  intolerant  of 
false  effort,  and  falser  success,  in  the  fields  where  alone  Truth  is  the  aim  and  Truth 
the  goal.  Never  once,  in  all  my  long  acquaintance  with  him,  have  I  known  Inness 
satisfied  with  a  work  of  his  own.  Times  without  number  I  have  seen  a  new  light 
flash  in  his  eye ;  a  quick,  eager  toss  of  the  head  and  thrusting  back  of  the  hair,  when 
some  problem  with  which  he  had  been  struggling  for  days  or  months — perhaps 
years — was  yielding  under  the  sway  of  his  fierce  energy;  then  it  was  he  gave  vent  to 

*  Elliott  Daingerfield  is  an  American  artist  of  great  merit,  born  at  Harpers  Ferry,  Va.,  in 
1859.  In  1880  he  came  to  New  York  to  study  art,  and  during  the  same  year  made  his  first 
exhibit  at  the  National  Academy.  He  worked  in  water-colors  and  in  oil,  confining  himself  to 
simple  subjects  and  building  up  his  method  out  of  study  and  experiment  upon  the  basis  of 
nature.  To  the  discreet  eye,  the  sincere  feeling  and  growing  force  of  his  work  was  full  of  a 
promise  which  the  artist  has  amply  fulfilled.  He  has  recently  developed  a  productiveness  of  a 
high  order  of  sentiment  and  feeling,  with  forcible  and  harmonious  color,  and  an  original  and 
decided  technique.  His  pictures  possess  the  poetic  quality  in  an  eminent  degree.  Mr.  Dainger¬ 
field  was  for  several  years  a  neighbor  of  George  Inness  in  the  studio  building  in  West  Fifty-fifth 
street.  New  York,  and  was  a  great  favorite  with  the  veteran. 


33 


those  expressions  of  satisfaction  which  have  been  called  conceit;  but,  mark  you, 
when  the  morning  came,  or  the  new  mood,  be  that  canvas  never  so  fine,  if  one  thing 
there  jarred  on  the  man’s  artistic  sensibility  he  attacked  it  with  all  the  old  enthusi¬ 
asm,  with  a  dogged  determination  to  bring  it  to  his  own  high  standard. 

This  spirit  absolves  him  forever  from  all  charges  of  vanity.  The  pleading  of 
friends,  artists  or  buyers  availed  nothing.  His  creed  was  ever  to  make  his  work 
more  perfect;  and  it  is  a  truth  well  attested  that,  however  beautiful  the  first  attempt 
might  have  been,  the  completed  work  was  almost  always  the  finer.  It  was  in  such 
struggles  that  Inness  conquered  his  limitations  and  grew  into  the  powerful,  virile  and 
poetic  painter  we  now  see  him. 

His  moods  were  so  well  known  to  me  that  I  could  readily  tell  from  his  very 
knock  at  my  door  whether  I  w^as  to  be  taken  off  across  the  hall  to  his  studio  to  view 
some  great  advance  in  his  picture,  or  whether  he  was  to  drop  into  a  chair  in  silence 
for  a  while,  worn,  tired,  and  with  that  depression  of  spirit  which  only  the  artistic 
nature  can  understand.  At  such  a  time,  one  word  upon  some  abstract  theme,  no 
matter  what,  if  really  serious,  would  stir  him  into  life  and  intense  speech.  It  would 
not  be  argument,  as  between  two;  for,  when  Inness  talked,  the  flame  needed  no 
draught.  It  blazed  and  flared  until  his  own  conclusions  were  reached,  and  then 
faded,  even  as  the  glow  on  some  of  his  own  forest  trees  seems  to  fade  in  the  twilight 
time,  until  the  deep  silence  left  no  room  for  speech.  Nor  were  his  arguments  always 
carried  to  logical  sequence:  what  mattered  it?  Does  the  storm  forever  sweep  across 
the  exact  field  you  or  I  have  chosen  for  its  path  ?  The  rush  and  go  of  it  were  all 
there  and  the  interest.  If  there  were  sympathy,  which  means  understanding,  in  the 
listener’s  soul,  these  monologues  of  his  yielded  many  great  truths  to  him. 

He  came  into  my  studio  one  day,  with  all  the  unrest  and  nervous  eagerness 
which  characterized  him  when  thinking  intensely,  threw  out  several  sentences  about 
his  picture,  his  purpose  in  it,  etc.,  then  with  a  sort  of  mad  rush  he  said: 

“  What’s  it  all  about  ?  What  does  it  mean — this  striving — this  everlasting  paint¬ 
ing,  painting,  painting  away  one’s  life  ?  What  is  Art  ?  That’s  the  question  I’ve  been 
asking  myself,  and  I’ve  answered  it  this  way:”  (I  drew  a  writing-pad  to  me,  and 
jotted  down  his  words;  they  are  worth  thinking  about  oftener  than  once.)  “Art  is 
the  endeavor  on  the  part  of  Mind  (Mind  being  the  creative  faculty)  to  express, 
through  the  senses,  ideas  of  the  great  principles  of  unity.” 

Perhaps  no  more  characteristic  sentence  has  ever  been  recorded  of  him.  It 
satisfied  him.  He  had  made  his  conclusion  and  expressed  it.  He  did  not  propose  to 
supply  us  with  brains  to  understand  what  the  “principles  of  unity”  may  be.  We 
might  struggle  as  we  pleased  with  that  problem,  as  perhaps  he  had  struggled  with 
the  other,  although  to  a  tyro  the  last  seems  exactly  the  same  as  the  first.  Art, 
Religion  and  the  Single  Tax  Theory  were  his  chief  themes,  and,  by  a  curiously  inter¬ 
esting  weaving,  his  logic  could  make  all  three  one  and  the  same  thing. 

Oblivious  to  externals,  both  of  persons  and  things,  he  often  said  and  did  much 
that  evoked  harsh  criticism,  but  at  heart,  it  may  be  truthfully  said,  he  was  as  gentle 
as  a  child,  even  tender,  and  swiftly  sympathetic.  What  a  delight  it  was  to  watch 
him  paint  in  one  of  those  impetuous  moods  which  so  often  possessed  him.  The 
colors  were  almost  never  mixed — he  had  his  blue  theories,  black,  umber,  and  in 
earlier  days  bitumen:  he  even  had  an  orange-chrome  phase.  With  a  great  mass  of 
color  he  attacked  the  canvas,  spreading  it  with  incredible  swiftness,  marking  in  the 
great  masses  with  a  skill  and  method  all  his  own,  and  impossible  to  imitate;  here, 
there,  all  over  the  canvas,  rub,  rub,  dig,  scratch,  until  the  very  brushes  seemed  to 
rebel,  spreading  their  bristles  as  fiercely  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  yore  along  the 
spine  of  their  porcine  possessor. 


34 


But  stand  here,  fifteen  feet  away.  What  a  marvelous  change  is  there  !  A  great 
rolling  billowy  cloud  sweeping  across  the  blue  expanse,  graded  with  such  subtle 
skill  over  the  undertone.  Vast  trees  with  sunlight  flecking  their  trunks,  meadows, 
ponds — mere  siaggestions,  but  beautiful ;  foregrounds  filled  with  detail,  where  there 
had  been  no  apparent  effort  to  produce  it,  delicate  flowers  scratched  in  with  the 
thumb-nail  or  handle  of  the  brush.  One’s  imagination  was  so  quickened  that  it 
supplied  all  the  finish  needed. 

Inness  used  to  say  that  his  forms  were  at  the  tips  of  his  fingers,  just  as  the 
alphabet  was  at  the  end  of  the  tongue.  Surely  it  was  true,  and  when  he  “  struck  a 
snag,”  as  he  called  it,  and  he  almost  always  did  (I  used  to  think  sometimes  for  the 
fun  of  the  struggle  that  was  to  follow),  ’twas  in  the  construction  of  his  picture, 
not  in  any  mere  matter  of  painting.  He  would  find  out  where  the  “hitch”  was, 
and  then  go  on. 

Under  excitement  of  this  kind  he  could  do  most  astounding  things.  One 
morning  a  frame  came  in  which  had  been  mismeasured;  he  sent  for  a  canvas  to 
fit  it,  rapidly  sketched  in  a  composition,  and  produced  one  of  the  most  limpid,  lovely 
pieces  of  pure  sunlight  I  have  ever  seen  him  paint.  But,  alas !  he  said  there  was  a 
“hitch,”  and  subsequent  labor  transformed  it — one  of  the  rare  cases  when  I  wish 
“  well  enough  ”  had  been  let  alone. 

I  once  had  the  good  fortune  to  paint  a  little  picture  that  pleased  him ;  he  caught 
sight  of  it  lying  on  the  floor  against  the  wall,  and  exclaimed: 

“  Hello,  who  did  that?” 

I  told  him.  Stooping  down  he  caught  it  up,  pushed  his  glasses  far  back  on  his 
head,  and  examined  it,  with  many  expressions  that  I  remember  with  deep  satisfac¬ 
tion,  put  it  down  and  walked  out  of  the  room.  The  next  morning  he  came  in  again, 
and,  taking  up  the  picture,  asked:  “What  do  you  expect  to  get  for  that?”  I  men¬ 
tioned  a  price,  thinking  he  meant  to  advise  some  one  to  buy  it,  but  he  answered  at 
once,  “  I’ll  take  it,”  walked  to  the  desk,  and  made  out  a  check. 

Then,  as  if  he  meant  to  aid  me  still  farther  up  the  hill,  he  caught  up  my  palette 
and  brushes,  and  for  an  hour  painted  at  a  figure  picture,  which  I  had  thought  finished, 
to  show  me  “how”  it  ought  to  be  done.  I  have  never  touched  that  picture.  It 
remains  a  souvenir  of  the  day  I  had  my  biggest  lesson  in  art,  and  I  value  and  feel  the 
importance  of  every  word  he  then  said. 

It  was  not  always,  however,  that  he  was  so  interested  or  so  complimentary. 
Years  after  I  undertook  a  picture  which  had  a  line  of  rail-fence  running  down  to  the 
foreground;  he  saw  it  and  objected  somewhat  to  the  arrangement.  I  undertook  to 
argue  the  point,  and  said,  “Why  can’t  I  have  it  that  way,  if  it  pleases  me?”  “So 
you  can,”  was  his  answer,  “if  you  want  to  be  a  d — d  idiot.”  I  changed  the  fence. 

So  incident  upon  incident  might  be  multiplied  of  this  strange,  erratic,  always 
artistic  nature,  that  forever  lived  at  white  heat,  unveiling  in  vast  waves  his  visions  of 
color,  tone  and  grandeur  of  line,  until  we  were  drawn  nearer  to  the  nature  he  loved, 
and  in  his  art  perceived  the  earnest  seeker  after  Truth. 

With  the  works  of  all  the  great  painters  he  had  a  profound  acquaintance,  and  an 
analytical  as  well  as  synthetic  knowledge.  His  admiration  for  the  really  great 
results  was  sincere  and  often  enthusiastic.  For  the  evanescent,  soap-bubble  suc¬ 
cesses  in  art  he  had  no  toleration,  and  with  a  force  quite  irresistible  he  pointed  out 
the  fallacy  in  efforts  which  were  the  result  of  mere  skill,  or  a  certain  jugglery  in  color, 
brush-work,  or  what  not.  “Limitation  there  must  be  in  art,”  he  would  say;  “how 
hopeless  it  all  seems  when  we  look  at  nature.” 

For  Titian,  Angelo,  Raphael,  Rembrandt  and  many  others  of  the  great  men  he 
was  unstinting  in  praise.  To  make  a  landscape  as  perfect  in  its  unity  as  a  portrait 

35 


by  Rembrandt  was  an  ever-present  ideal.  Rousseau,  Millet,  Corot,  Constable, 
Turner  and  Claude  he  quoted  often  as  being  at  the  head  of  the  list,  and,  perceiving 
their  faults,  as  he  often  did,  their  merits  never  escaped  him.  Of  the  great  English¬ 
man  he  said  hard  things  for  his  brutality  and  “  stupidity,”  although  to  certain  works, 
such  as  the  “Pier  at  Calais,”  he  gave  unlimited  praise.  As  his  own  ideals  were  high, 
so  was  his  condemnation  of  all  failure  or  frivolity  of  intention  severe,  often  bitter, 
but  not  unjust. 

No  reminiscence  of  Inness  would  be  complete  without  some  mention  of  his  great 
power  as  a  colorist,  for  all  his  philosophy,  all  his  many-sided  nature,  seemed  to 
express  itself  in  the  fulness  and  beauty  of  color.  We  are  not  to  make  comparisons 
with  the  work  of  others;  that  were  needless — Inness’s  color  was  his  own.  The  early 
morning,  with  its  silver,  tender  tones,  offered  him  as  great  opportunity  for  the 
expression  of  what  he  called  “  fulness  of  color  ”  as  did  the  open  glare  of  the  noonday 
or  the  fiery  bursts  of  sunset.  Mention  has  been  made  of  his  different  color-moods, 
and  one  fairly  held  the  breath  to  see  him  spread  with  unrelenting  fury  a  broad 
scumble  of  orange-chrome  over  the  most  delicate,  subtle,  gray  effect,  in  order  to  get 
more  “  fulness;”  and  still  more  strange  was  it  to  see,  by  a  m5^sterious  technical  use 
of  black  or  blue,  the  same  tender  silver  morning  unfold  itself,  but  stronger,  firmer, 
fuller  in  its  tone  quality.  “  One  must  use  pure  color,”  he  would  say;  “the  picture 
must  be  so  constructed  that  the  ‘  local  ’  of  every  color  can  be  secured,  whether  in  the 
shadow  or  the  light.”  Many  of  his  canvases  are  criticised  because  of  an  over-green¬ 
ness  or  an  intensity  of  the  blues,  but  deeper  study  shows  the  man’s  principle,  for 
which  he  strove  with  the  whole  force  of  his  nature — a  perfect  balance  of  color 
quality  everywhere  in  the  picture.  The  mass  of  offending  green  will  be  found  to 
balance  perfectly  with  the  mass  of  gray  or  blue  of  the  sky.  So  that  the  whole 
canvas,  viewed  with  that  perceptive  power  without  which  there  is  no  justice  in 
either  the  criticism  or  the  critic,  becomes  an  harmonious  balance.  With  all  the 
intensity  of  his  powerful  palette,  Inness  maintained  that  the  “middle  tone”  was 
the  secret  of  all  success  in  color — he  strove  for  it  until  the  end,  and  so  great  was  his 
effort  that  the  latest  works  are  but  waves  of  wonderful  color,  marvelous  and  mys¬ 
terious — the  very  essence  of  the  beauty  of  nature.  When  he  chose  to  put  aside  his 
theories  and  produce  a  “  tone  study,”  following  the  habit  of  those  masters  who  have 
glorified  modern  French  art,  he  was  as  subtle  as  any  of  them  and  far  less  labored; 
but  it  is  in  his  very  intensity  that  he  has  preserved  his  individuality,  and  if  we  are  to 
understand  him  aright  we  must  study  him  from  his  own  standpoint.  In  his  earlier 
life  his  drawing  was  precise  and  accurate  to  a  wonderful  degree,  being  elaborated  to 
the  very  verge  of  the  horizon. 

In  the  beginning  Inness  strove  for  knowledge  with  most  untiring  effort.  His 
early  pictures  are  full  of  intricate,  elaborate  detail;  ’twas  thus  he  gained  that  knowl¬ 
edge  of  forms  which  put  them  at  his  finger-tips.  Always,  however,  there  was  the 
largeness  of  perception  which  enabled  him  to  understand  masses,  and  divide  his 
compositions  into  just  proportions  of  light  and  shade;  and  under  all  one  saw  the  poet 
and  the  philosopher.  Painfully  objective  as  were  these  early  efforts,  they  were  tasks 
along  the  great  highway  which  at  last  led  him  to  those  heights  whence  he  saw  and 
understood  the  subjective  in  nature  and  expressed  it  in  his  art. 

Analytical,  profoundly  so,  when  he  chose  to  be,  with  increasing  years  his  art 
grew  more  and  more  synthetic,  and  the  very  latest  works  are  most  so  of  all,  and 
strangely  beautiful  in  the  total  elimination  of  needless  detail  and  sure  grasp  of  idea. 
His  art  became  at  that  time  a  sort  of  soul-language,  which,  if  you  have  not  the 
speech,  you  may  not  understand,  but  it  is  none  the  less  beautiful.  To-day  we  are  at 
too  near  a  view,  Let  us  await  the  coming  years;  he  will  then  need  no  defense. 

36 


George  Inness’s  Opinions. 


{From  “  A  Painter  on  Painting,"  in  Harper’s  Magazine  for  February, 


SOME  artists  like  a  short  brush  to  paint  with  and  others  a  long  brush  ;  some  want 
a  smooth  canvas  and  others  a  rough  canvas ;  some  a  canvas  with  a  hard  surface 
and  others  a  canvas  with  an  absorbent  surface ;  some  a  white  canvas  and  others  a 
stained  canvas.  Decamps,  you  know,  bought  old  pictures  and  painted  over  them  ; 
his  canvas  was  a  painting  before  he  touched  it;  and  I  should  say  that  if  a  man  wished 
to  paint  as  Delacroix  painted,  an  old  picture  would  suit  him  as  well  as  a  new  canvas 
to  put  his  scene  on.  On  the  other  hand.  Couture  painted  only  over  a  fresh,  clean 
canvas,  slightly  stained,  while  Troyon  evidently  preferred  a  plain,  white  surface, 
because  he  and  Couture  used  transparent  washes  of  color,  through  which  the  original 
surface  of  their  canvases  could  often  be  seen.  But  Delacroix  painted  solid  all 
through,  and  his  quality,  unlike  that  of  Troyon,  Couture,  Ziem  and  other  artists, 
does  not  depend  upon  the  transparency  of  his  color.  Some  artists  use  quick-drying 
oils  for  varnishing,  and  others  slow-drying  oils.  Most  artists  prefer  to  paint  in  a 
north  room,  because  there  the  light  is  more  equable — the  sun  does  not  come  in.  But 
Mr.  Page  likes  a  south  room,  although  I  don’t  know  why.  You  see  there  are  no 
absolute  rules  about  methods  of  painting. 

*  *  5|C 

Pupils  can’t  be  taught  much  by  an  artist.  I  have  found  that  explanations  usually 
hinder  them,  or  else  make  their  work  stereotyped.  If  I  had  a  pupil  in  my  studio,  I 
should  say  to  him,  as  Troyon  once  said  in  similar  circumstances  :  “Sit  down  and 
paint.”  Still,  now  and  then  I  should  tell  him  a  principle  of  light  and  shade,  of  color, 
or  of  chiaro-oscuro,  and  criticise  his  work,  showing  him  where  he  was  right  and  where 
he  was  wrong,  as  if  I  were  walking  with  him  through  a  gallery  of  pictures,  and 
pointing  out  their  faults  and  their  merits.  The  best  way  to  teach  art  is  the  Paris 
way.  There  the  pupils — two,  three  or  more — hire  a  room,  hire  their  models  and  set 
up  their  easels.  Once  or  twice  a  week  the  master  comes  in,  looks  at  their  work,  and 
makes  suggestions  and  remarks,  advising  the  use  of  no  particular  method,  but 
leaving  each  pupil’s  individuality  free.  If  a  young  man  paints  regularly  in  the  studio 
of  his  teacher,  he  is  apt  to  lose  spontaneity  and  vitality,  and  to  become  a  dead 
reproduction  of  his  teacher.  Van  Marcke  suffered,  I  think,  from  this  cause.  He 
painted  within  arm’s  length  of  Troyon,  and  he  has  become  a  sort  of  inanimate 
Troyon. 

*  *  * 

Meissonier  is  a  very  wonderful  painter,  but  his  aim  seems  to  be  a  material  rather 
than  a  spiritual  one.  The  imitative  has  too  strong  a  hold  upon  his  mind ;  hence, 
even  in  his  simplest  and  best  things,  we  find  the  presence  of  individualities  which 

37 


should  have  been  absent.  Even  in  his  greatest  efforts  there  is  not  that  power  to 
awaken  our  emotion  which  the  simplest  works  of  a  painter  like  Decamps  possess. 
There  every  detail  of  the  picture  is  a  part  of  the  vision  which  impressed  the  artist,  and 
which  he  purposed  to  reproduce  to  the  end  that  it  might  impress  others  ;  and  every 
detail  has  been  subordinated  to  the  expression  of  the  artist’s  impression.  Take  one 
of  his  pictures,  “  The  Suicide”  *— a  representation  of  a  dead  man  lying  on  a  bed  in  a 
garret,  partly  in  the  sunlight.  All  is  given  up  to  the  expression  of  the  idea  of  desola¬ 
tion.  The  scene  is  painted  as  though  the  artist  had  seen  it  in  a  dream.  Nothing  is 
done  to  gratify  curiosity  or  to  withdraw  the  mind  from  the  great  central  point — the 
dead  man  ;  yet  all  is  felt  to  be  complete  and  truly  finished.  The  spectator  carries 
away  from  it  a  strong  impression,  but  his  memory  is  not  taxed  with  a  multitude  of 
facts.  The  simple  story  is  impressed  upon  his  mind  and  remains  there  forever.  Con¬ 
trast  such  a  work  with  a  Meissonier.  Here  the  tendency  seems  to  me  to  be  toward 
the  gratification  of  lower  desires,  and  you  see  long-winded  processions  and  reviews  ; 
great  historical  compositions  ;  you  see  horses  painted  with  nails  in  their  shoes,  and 
men  upon  them  with  buttons  on  their  coats — nails  and  buttons  at  distances  from  the 
spectator  where  they  could  not  be  seen  by  any  eye,  however  sharp  or  disciplined. 
Gerome  is  worse  than  Meissonier,  and  in  the  same  way.  So  is  Detaille  ;  so  are  the 
multitudes  of  their  school.  It  is  the  same  story  all  through.  Decamps’  mind  is  more 
perfectly  governed  by  an  original  impulse,  and  it  obeys  more  perfectly  the  laws  of 
vision. 

*  *  * 

As  landscape  painters  I  consider  Rousseau,  Daubigny  and  Corot  among  the  very 
best.  Daubigny,  particularly,  and  Corot,  have  mastered  the  relation  of  things  in 
nature,  one  to  the  other,  and  have  attained  in  their  greatest  works  representations 
more  or  less  nearly  perfect.  But  in  their  day  the  science  underlying  impressions  was 
not  fully  known.  The  advances  already  made  in  that  science,  united  to  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  principles  underlying  the  attempts  made  by  these  artists,  will,  we  may 
hope,  soon  bring  the  art  of  landscape  painting  to  perfection.  Rousseau  was  perhaps 
the  greatest  French  landscape  painter ;  but  I  have  seen  in  this  country  some  of  the 
smaller  things  of  Corot  which  appeared  to  me  to  be  truly  and  thoroughly  spontaneous 
representations  of  nature,  although  weak  in  their  key  of  color,  as  Corot  always  is. 
But  his  idea  was  a  pure  one,  and  he  had  long  been  a  hard  student.  Daubigny  also 
had  a  pure  idea,  and  so  had  Rousseau.  There  was  no  affectation  about  these  men  ; 
there  were  no  tricks  of  color. 

*  *  * 

Parts  of  Turner’s  pictures  are  splendid  specimens  of  realization,  but  their  effect 
is  spoiled  by  other  parts,  which  are  full  of  falsity  and  claptrap.  Very  rarely,  if  ever, 
does  Turner  give  the  impression  of  the  real  that  nature  gives.  For  example,  in  that 
well-known  work  in  the  London  National  Gallery,  which  presents  a  group  of  fishing 
boats  between  the  spectator  and  the  sun  (the  sun  in  a  fog),  we  find  that  half  of  the 
picture,  if  cut  out  by  itself,  would  be  most  admirable.  Into  the  other  half,  however, 
he  has  introduced  a  dock,  some  fishermen,  some  fishes  :  an  accumulation  of  small 
things  impossible  under  the  circumstances  to  unity  of  vision.  Frequently,  as  in  this 
case,  in  fact,  almost  continually,  the  sun  is  represented  as  before  us,  and  objects  are 
introduced  for  the  purpose  of  conveying  Turner’s  ideal  of  effects  in  all  sorts  of  false 
lights,  as  though  there  were  half  a  dozen  different  suns  shining  from  various  positions 
in  the  heavens.  Of  course,  all  this  may  appeal — as  probably  he  intended  it  should — 
to  foolish  fancies,  which  are  only  sensuous  weaknesses  and  not  the  offspring  of  pro- 


*Now  in  the  Walters’  collection,  at  Baltimore,  Md. 

3« 


found  feeling.  Turner  was  a  man  of  very  great  genius,  but  of  perverted  powers— 
perverted  by  love  of  money,  of  the  world,  or  of  something  or  other.  His  best  things 
are  his  marines,  in  which  appear  great  dramatic  power.  Constable  was  the  first 
English  painter  of  the  modern  landscape  idea  ;  and  the  French  school,  to  which 
Troyon,  Corot,  Daubigny  and  others  I  have  mentioned  belong,  was  founded  upon  him. 
These  Frenchmen  learned  from  Constable  and  improved  upon  him.  But  in  Turner, 
the  dramatic  predominated — the  desire  to  tell  a  story.  I  think  the  general  estimate 
that  any  true  artist  must  form  before  the  works  of  Turner  is  that  he  was  a  very 
subtle  scene-painter.  He  stands  alone,  it  is  true,  and  I  do  him  all  reverence;  but  his 
genius  was  not  of  the  highest  order, 

*  *  * 

Our  country  is  flooded  with  the  mercantile  imbecilities  of  Verboeckhoven  and 
hundreds  of  other  European  artists  whose  very  names  are  a  detestation  to  any  lover 
of  truth.  The  skin-deep  beauties  of  Bouguereau  and  others  of  whom  he  is  a  type, 
are  a  loathing  to  those  who  hate  the  idolatry  which  worships  waxen  images.  The 
true  artist  loves  only  that  work  in  which  the  evident  intention  has  been  to  attain  the 
truth,  and  such  work  is  not  easily  brought  to  a  fine  polish.  What  he  hates  is  that 
which  has  evidently  been  painted  for  a  market.  The  sleekness  of  which  we  see  so 
much  in  pictures  is  a  result  of  spiritual  inertia,  and  is  his  detestation.  It  is  simply  a 
mercantile  finish.  Who  ever  thinks  about  Michael  Angelo’s  work  being  finished? 
No  great  artist  ever  finished  a  picture  or  a  statue.  It  is  mercantile  work  that  is 
finished,  and  finish  is  what  the  picture  dealers  cry  for.  Instead  of  covering  the  wall 
of  his  mansion  with  works  of  character,  or,  what  is  better,  with  those  works  of  in¬ 
spiration  which  allure  the  mind  to  the  regions  of  the  unknown,  he  is  apt  to  cover 
them  with  the  sleek  polish  of  lackadaisical  sentiment,  or  the  puerilities  of  impossible 
conditions.  Consequently  the  picture  dealer,  although  he  may  have,  or  may  have 
had,  something  of  the  artistic  instinct,  is  overwhelmed  by  commercial  necessity. 
The  genuine  artist  sometimes  supposes  that  he  suffers  because  his  love  is  not  of  the 
world.  But  let  him  beware  of  such  a  fancy.  It  is  a  ghost.  It  has  no  reality.  Our 
unhappinesses  arise  from  disobedience  to  the  monitions  within  us.  Let  every  en¬ 
deavor  be  honest,  and  although  the  results  of  our  labors  may  often  seem  abortive, 
there  will  here  and  there  flash  out  from  them  a  spark  of  truth  which  shall  gain  us  the 
sympathy  of  a  noble  spirit. 

=(!  H<  * 

The  true  use  of  art  is,  first,  to  cultivate  the  artist’s  own  spiritual  nature,  and 
secondly,  to  enter  as  a  factor  in  general  civilization.  And  the  increase  of  these 
effects  depends  upon  the  purity  of  the  artist’s  motive  in  the  pursuit  of  art.  Every 
artist  who,  without  reference  to  external  circumstances,  aims  truly  to  represent  the 
ideas  and  emotions  which  come  to  him  when  he  is  in  the  presence  of  nature,  is  in 
process  of  his  own  spiritual  development,  and  is  a  benefactor  of  his  race.  No  man 
can  attempt  the  reproduction  of  any  idea  within  him,  from  a  pure  motive  or  love  of 
the  idea  itself,  without  being  in  the  course  of  his  own  regeneration.  The  difficulties 
necessary  to  be  overcome  in  communicating  the  substance  of  his  idea  (which,  in  this 
case,  is  feeling  or  emotion)  to  the  end  that  the  idea  may  be  more  and  more  perfectly 
conveyed  to  others,  involve  the  exercise  of  his  intellectual  faculties;  and  soon  the 
discovery  is  made  that  the  moral  element  underlies  all,  that  unless  the  moral  also  is 
brought  into  play  the  intellectual  faculties  are  not  in  condition  for  conveying  the 
artistic  impulse  or  inspiration.  The  mind  may,  indeed,  be  convinced  of  the  means  of 
operation,  but  only  when  the  moral  powers  have  been  cultivated  do  the  conditions 
exist  necessary  to  the  transmission  of  the  artistic  inspiration  which  is  from  truth  and 
goodness  itself.  Of  course  no  man’s  motive  can  be  absolutely  pure  and  single.  His 

39 


environment  affects  him.  But  the  true  artistic  impulse  is  divine.  The  reality  of 
every  artistic  vision  lies  in  the  thought  animating  the  artist’s  mind.  This  is  proven 
by  the  fact  that  every  artist  who  attempts  only  to  imitate  what  he  sees  fails  to  repre¬ 
sent  that  something  which  comes  home  to  him  as  a  satisfaction,  fails  to  make  a  repre¬ 
sentation  corresponding  in  the  satisfaction  felt  in  his  first  perception.  Consequently 
we  find  that  men  of  strong  artistic  genius,  which  enables  them  to  dash  off  an  impres¬ 
sion  coming,  as  they  suppose,  from  what  is  outwardly  seen,  may  produce  a  work,  how¬ 
ever  incomplete  or  imperfect  in  details,  of  greater  vitality,  having  more  of  the 
peculiar  quality  called  “freshness,”  either  as  to  color  or  spontaneity  of  artistic  im¬ 
pulse,  than  can  other  men  after  laborious  efforts — a  work  which  appeals  to  the  culti¬ 
vated  mind  as  sometimes  more  or  less  perfect  of  nature.  Now  this  spontaneous 
movement  by  which  he  produces  a  picture  is  governed  by  the  law  of  homogeneity  or 
unity,  and  accordingly  we  find  that  in  proportion  to  the  perfection  of  his  genius  is 
the  unity  of  his  picture.  The  highest  art  is  where  has  been  most  perfectly  breathed 
the  sentiment  of  humanity.  Rivers,  streams,  the  rippling  brook,  the  hillside,  the 
sky,  clouds — all  things  that  we  see — can  convey  that  sentiment  if  we  are  in  the  love 
of  God  and  the  desire  of  truth.  Some  persons  think  that  landscape  has  no  power  of 
communicating  human  sentiment.  But  this  is  a  great  mistake.  The  civilized  land¬ 
scape  peculiarly  can,  and  therefore  I  love  it  more  and  think  it  more  worthy  of  re¬ 
production  than  that  which  is  savage  and  untamed.  It  is  more  significant.  Every 
act  of  man,  everything  of  labor,  effort,  suffering,  want,  anxiety,  necessity,  love, 
marks  itself  wherever  it  has  been.  In  Italy,  I  remember  frequently  noticing  the 
peculiar  ideas  that  came  to  me  from  seeing  odd-looking  trees  that  had  been  used,  or 
tortured,  or  twisted — all  telling  something  about  humanity.  American  landscape, 
perhaps,  is  not  so  significant;  but  still  everything  in  nature  has  something  to  say  to 
us.  No  artist  need  fear  that  his  work  will  not  find  sympathy  if  he  only  works 
earnestly  and  lovingly. 


40 


Opinions  on  George  Inness. 


INNESS  paints  at  times  with  haste  and  carelessness;  he  does  not  always  do  himself 
justice.  Yet  rarely  do  we  see  one  of  his  landscapes  without  finding  there  is  a 
picturesque  effect  or  a  subtle  meaning,  indicative  of  the  rarest  skill  and  the  most  ab¬ 
solute  genius;  if  limited  in  scope,  yet  actual  and  true. 

— Tuckerman,  “  Book  of  the  Artists.” 

*  * 

Wildly  unequal  and  eccentric  as  Inness  is,  recklessly  experimentative,  indulging  in 
sameness  of  ideas,  often  destroying  good  work  by  bad,  lawless  in  manner,  using  pig¬ 
ments,  sometimes,  as  though  they  were  mortar  and  he  a  plasterer,  still  there  is  ever 
perceptible  in  his  works  imagination,  feeling  and  technical  instinct  of  a  high  order. 
The  French  school  has  tempered  his  style;  but  he  is  by  no  means  a  mechanical  fol¬ 
lower  of  it.  He  can  be  as  sensitive  as  he  is  powerful  in  his  rendering  of  nature’s 
phenomena.  Inness  gives  with  equal  felicity  the  drowsy  heat,  hot  shimmer  and 
languid  quiet  of  a  summer’s  noon,  or  the  storm-weighed  atmosphere,  its  dark  masses 
of  vapor  and  the  wild  gathering  of  thunderclouds  with  their  solemn  hush  before  the 
tempest  breaks.  He  uses  sunlight  sparingly,  but  it  glows  on  his  canvas  and  turns 
darkness  into  hope  and  joy, 

— J.  J.  Jarvis,  “  The  Art  Idea.” 

*  4: 

The  influence  of  the  French  school  of  landscape  art  is  probably  more  strongly 
apparent  in  George  Inness  than  in  the  pictures  of  any  other  American  painter,  and 
yet  he  is  no  imitator,  although  the  more  subtle  features  of  this  idea  may  be  detected 
in  all  of  his  pictures.  There  is  no  American  artist  who  has  acquired  greater  fame  as 
such  than  George  Inness,  neither  can  we  recall  any  who  is  so  varied  in  his  moods. 

.  .  ,  In  his  happy  moods  he  has  painted  some  of  the  best  landscape  pictures  ever 

produced  in  this  country. 

Art  Journal,  March,  1876, 

*  *  5i< 

At  a  time  when  the  making  of  what  we  are  called  upon  to  accept  as  landscapes 
has  become  a  trick,  at  the  command  of  any  half-trained  amateur,  and  when  it  has 
become  a  species  of  manufacture  with  a  great  majority  of  the  class  of  painters  who 
call  themselves  professional;  at  a  time  when  dexterity  of  technique  on  the  one  hand, 
eccentricity  on  the  other,  and  mere  prettiness  as  a  third  wheel  to  the  coach,  trundle 
their  way  gayly  along  the  highway  of  art,  leaving  no  record  that  will  survive  their 
passage,  there  is  something  infinitely  majestic  in  the  presence  of  a  man,  gray  with 
years  of  tireless  struggle,  and  spurred  by  a  long  life  of  self-criticism,  striding  steadily 
forward  on  unfaltering  feet,  making  the  great  work  of  to-day  but  a  step  upward 


41 


toward  the  greater  work  of  to-morrow,  seeking  his  ideal  of  nature  with  his  face 
turned  to  the  sun.  No  higher  honor  could  be  accorded  to  George  Inness,  nearing 
three  score  and  ten,  with  the  fire  of  youth  still  burning  within  him,  and  the  light  of 
truth  still  shining  in  his  undimmed  eyes,  than  to  make  note  with  wonder  that  his  prog¬ 
ress  continues,  as  if  he  had  conquered  the  secret  of  outrunning  time,  and  that  his 
art  grows  steadily  more  sovereign  in  its  power,  long  past  the  period  where  in  the 
common  course  of  nature  the  artist’s  sun  reaches  its  zenith  and  commences  its  de¬ 
cline.  Bom  in  1825,  upon  the  very  dawn  of  landscape  art  in  America,  Mr.  Inness 
stands  to-day  in  its  splendid  noon  in  the  creation  of  whose  most  dazzling  radiance  his 
brush  has  been  the  necromancer’s  wand.  He  set  out  upon  the  journey  on  uncertain 
feet.  Born  at  Newburgh,  N,  Y.,  apprenticed  to  a  steel  engraver,  and  compelled  to 
give  the  work  up  by  illness,  a  few  lessons  from  Regis  Gignoux  and  his  own  genius 
constituted  his  entire  artistic  capital.  Physical  maladies  and  poverty  beset  his  feeble 
steps.  Without  a  guide,  at  a  time  when  even  the  guides  were  little  better  than  blind 
themselves,  he  battled  his  way  onward  and  upward,  surviving  failures  and  retrieving 
errors,  until  he  found  the  turning  of  the  road  that  led  to  the  light.  His  whole  life 
has  been  an  experiment  upon  himself.  His  first  visit  to  Europe,  in  1850,  began  the 
work  of  mental  organization.  The  pi'ogress  of  his  developments  is  clearly  denoted  in 
his  works.  Working  without  masters  and  without  schools,  he  made  the  best  art  he 
could  find  provide  him  with  advice,  and  made  nature  herself  the  school  in  which  the 
lessons  might  be  applied.  Never  satisfied  with  himself,  he  never  remained  stationary 
in  his  art,  and  his  powers  have  not  ceased  to  ripen.  His  art  is  an  art  of  revelations, 
because  he  finds  in  nature  a  variety  which  is  endless  and  a  new  problem  to  succeed 
every  problem  already  solved.  The  series  of  pictures  which  constitute  his  record  of 
American  landscape,  and  which  form  the  crowning  productions  of  his  career,  are 
part  of  our  national  chronicles  as  well  as  masterpieces  of  our  national  art.  In  his 
studio  at  Montclair,  among  the  Orange  Mountains,  he  is  writing  history  with  his  brush 
as  surely  as  a  Prescott  or  a  Bancroft  ever  wrote  it  with  their  pens. 

— Catalogue  of  the  Thos.  B.  Clarke  Collection,  Philadelphia,  1891. 

*  *  * 

Inness  paints  nature  as  the  Ossian  of  the  Highlands  sang  of  it — in  its  great  outer 
rather  than  in  its  little  inner  form. 

Henry  Eckford,  in  The  Ceiitnry  Magazitie  for  May,  1882. 

*  +  He 

George  Inness  presented  himself  in  Germany  for  the  first  time  in  1892.  To  his 
later  years  belong  his  most  significant  productions.  His  life  was,  like  Corot’s,  an  in¬ 
cessant  advance  and  renewal.  Once  he  is  broad  and  powerful,  like  Rousseau;  again 
tender  and  poetic  like  Corot,  here  idyllically  pastoral  like  Daubigny,  there  pathetic 
and  brooding  like  Dupre.  All  his  pictures  are  broadly  painted,  deeply  felt,  and  full- 
souled  symphonies  of  tone.  The  history  of  art  must  welcome  him  as  one  of  the  most 
varied  and  finest  landscape  painters  of  the  century. 

— Richard  Muther,  “  Geschichte  der  Malerei  im  Neunzehnten  Jahrhundert.” 

H  H  * 

When  I  came  to  this  country  for  the  first  time,  in  1890,  I  had  the  pleasure  and 
honor  to  form  an  acquaintance  with  George  Inness,  who  received  me  at  his  country 
house  in  a  most  charming  manner,  and  showed  me  all  the  landscapes  he  had  then  on 
his  easels.  Some  of  these  I  see  again  to-day,  after  his  lamented  demise,  and,  being 
urged  by  a  friend  to  write  a  few  lines,  as  I  had  previously  done,  in  1890,  in  the  New 
York  Times,  about  the  exhibition  of  Mr.  Richard  H.  Halsted’s  collection  of  Inness’s 
works  at  the  American  Art  Galleries,  I  am  willing  to  act  as  a  critic  of  art,  provided 

42 


painters  may  be  allowed  to  write  on  painting.  Perhaps  I  may  be  permitted  to  do  so, 
once  in  a  while  at  any  rate,  if  it  be  only  to  please  a  friend  and  myself.  The  moral 
and  physical  personality  of  George  Inness  has  made  a  last  impression  on  my  mind. 
He  was  naturally  nervous,  impressionable,  sensitive  to  the  richness  of  coloring,  to  its 
enamel,  to  its  material,  as  well  as  sensitive  to  the  poetical  and  quick  effects  of  nature.  ’ 
Living  as  he  was,  in  the  very  midst  of  the  latter,  looking  about  its  grandeur,  its 
marvels  of  light,  he  especially  liked  the  evenings  of  autumn,  the  autumn  of  his  na¬ 
tive  country.  He  brought  out  of  it  powerful  works,  full  of  emotion  and  painted  in  a 
rutilant  color.  He  was  always  careful,  however,  to  retain  for  oil  painting  its  special 
qualities  of  material  and  enamel,  and  never  tried  to  put  the  essential  qualities  of 
either  pastel  or  water-colors  into  oil  painting.  Thus,  he  was  proceeding  from  Millet, 
Jules  Dupre  and  Rousseau,  while  preserving  his  original  mark.  We  always  proceed 
from  the  time  in  which  we  live  and  the  works  that  have  impressed  us  at  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  our  career,  but  our  personality  comes  out,  however.  Baudry  and  Chavannes, 
in  their  decorative  works,  proceeded  from  the  Italian  masters  of  the  fifteenth  and  six¬ 
teenth  centuries,  although  in  a  different  degree;  the  English  school  of  the  beginning 
of  this  century  had  influence  over  Delacroix.  A  new  art  cannot  be  born  in  a  day;  a 
whole  century  is  hardly  sufficient  for  it.  But  I  must  speak  now  of  the  works  that  I 
like  best  among  Mr.  Halsted’s  collection  of  Inness’s  works.  No.  7  would,  if  signed  by 
Turner,  Millet  or  Corot,  be  worth  $10,000  and  over.  In  my  view  it  is  equivalent  to 
the  best  landscape  ever  painted  by  any  great  landscape  painter.  No  warm  and 
stormy  day  in  June  has  ever  been  felt  better  nor  expressed  better.  Nature  has  been 
sometimes  seen  as  if  it  were  asleep  in  a  golden  atmosphere,  when  there  was  no  wind, 
but  an  oppressive  air  full  of  languor;  the  sun  behind  the  clouds  was  not  throwing 
any  shade  under  the  trees ;  waters  were  still  in  the  shallow  rivers;  one  could  feel  that 
not  a  single  leaf  was  trembling.  Nature  was  taking  her  afternoon’s  nap.  Now,  in  my 
opinion,  Inness,  as  I  remember  him,  must  have  had  such  a  feeling  when  he  painted 
that  magnificent  piece  of  art,  which  is  undoubtedly  of  the  highest  order.  The  color¬ 
ing  of  the  green  tones  is  positively  delightful,  for  it  may  be  said  that  no  eye  was  ever 
more  sensitive  than  Inness’s  to  the  richness  of  the  green  tones  brought  about  by  the 
summer  light.  This  painting  should  be  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art.  No.  20 
is  “brother”  to  No.  7,  and  shows  the  same  skill  in  coloring  the  strong  light  and 
storms  of  summer.  The  coloring  of  this  souvenir  of  a  storm  in  summer  is  really  ex¬ 
quisite.  Turner  has  never  brought  together  his  remembrances  of  a  day  like  this  with 
more  richness  of  material  or  a  more  observing  mind.  No,  3  is  a  continuation  of  a 
series  that  is  a  real  apotheosis  of  the  sun.  No.  15  shows  white  green  tones  in  a  gray, 
rainy  sky,  forerunner  of  a  storm,  which  are  enameled  in  a  surprisingly  artistic  man¬ 
ner.  The  symphony  of  the  green  tones,  supported  and  accompanied  by  the  gray 
clouds,  is  masterly  scored.  No.  6  is  a  good  painting,  and  so  is  No.  13.  These  lines  are 
but  brief  homage  to  true  talent.  When  the  time  comes — and  it  will  come,  sooner  or 
later — to  do  full  justice  to  George  Inness,  I  shall  be  glad  to  have  been  one  of  the  first, 
perhaps,  who  felt  an  artistic  emotion  in  contemplating  these  paintings,  that  so  clearly 
show  the  impressionability  of  a  thorough  artist,  a  lover  of  nature  and  an  executor  of 
rare  merit. 

Benjamin  Constant,  in  the  New  York  Times,  1895. 


43 


The  George  Inness  Sale. 


{From  The  Collector,  Feb.  /j, 


The  executors’  sale  of  the  pictures  of  the  late  George  Inness  is  a  sale  of  record.  It 
is  the  only  one  we  have  had  in  the  United  States  which  approaches  the  im¬ 
portance  of  the  post-mortem  sales  of  Corot,  Millet,  Troyon  and  the  other  great  French 
painters.  There  has  been  no  approximation  to  it  excepting  in  the  disposition,  also 
by  Messrs.  Ortgies  &  Co.,  of  the  pictures  left  by  Alexander  H.  Wyant,  the  result  of 
which  was  given  in  full  in  The  Collector  for  Feb.  15,  1894.  The  grandeur  of  the  artist, 
the  peculiar  interest  of  the  man,  and  the  now  general  appreciation  of  his  greatness, 
render  the  Inness  sale  a  just  tribute.  To  collectors  the  figures  here  given  should 
prove  of  interest,  even  if  they  do  not  yet  own  examples  of  our  foremost  landscape 
painter,  and  of  value  if  they  do.  The  sale  comprises  the  entire  works  of  Mr.  Inness 
to  be  sold  by  the  estate,  so  that  its  results  may  be  accepted  as  a  standard  upon  which 
to  base  future  calculations.  The  prices  are  given  seriatim,  in  order  of  sale  as 
catalogued.  The  total  was  over  $108,000. 


Out  of  my  Studio  Door,  Montclair,  12x14,  1878.  John  D.  Crimmins .  $250 

In  the  Catskills,  12x14,  i860.  S.  D.  Warren .  200 

Durham,  Conn.,  16x24,  1879.  Edward  M.  Colie .  250 

Edge  of  the  Wood,  16x24,  1866.  George  R.  Green .  300 

Pequonic  River,  Pompton,  iixi3J^,  1877.  F.  M.  Shepard .  210 

Perugia,  Italy,  i8>^xii,  1873.  Mrs.  F.  S.  Fisher .  200 

Pompton,  10x13,  >'877.  S.  C.  Van  Deusen .  135 

Back  of  the  Old  Barn,  12x18,  1888.  Francis  T.  Lloyd .  300 

Leeds,  New  York,  9>^ XI 3,  1864.  P.  H.  McMahon .  200 

Niagara,  16x24,  1885.  Henry  Hess,  Jr .  320 

Albano,  Italy,  9J^xi3>^,  1872.  H.  J.  Luce .  no 

Artists’  Brook,  North  Conway,  16x24,  1875.  Henry  Sampson .  500 

Leeds,  New  York,  12x18,  1864.  M.  Merriam .  230 

Summer  Evening,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  30x45,  1892.  Mrs.  W.  R.  Linn .  1,000 

Light  House,  Nantucket,  18x26,  1879.  A.  H.  Alker .  500 

Old  Oak,  Lyndhurst,  New  Forest,  England,  25x30,  1887.  C.  H.  De  Silver .  1.675 

Hastings,  New  York,  16x18^,  1868.  A.  H.  Alker .  120 

Early  Morning,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  30x45,  1892.  E.  W.  Bass .  900 

Lake  Nemi,  Italy,  18x26,  1872.  D.  B.  Samuels .  225  v/ 

The  Brook,  8x10,  1876.  S.  C.  Van  Deusen .  no 

The  Hermit,  12x18,  1885.  C.  L.  Hutchinson .  175 

Winter  at  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  22x36,  1884.  E.  W.  Bass .  200 

45 


Pompton  River,  10x14,  1877.  P.  H.  McMahon .  $140 

Old  Orchard,  Milton-on-the-Hudson,  20x30,  1878.  F.  G.  Lloyd .  275 

Looking  Across  the  Hudson,  16x20,  1883.  E.  M.  Colic .  325 

The  Last  Glow,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  30x45,  1894.  Thomas  B.  Clarke .  510 

Wood  Interior,  Eagle  wood.  New  Jersey,  12X17X,  1864.  A.  H.  Alker .  150 

The  Pasture,  16x24.  John  Notman .  310 

The  Pond  at  Sunset,  Milton,  16x24,  1885.  Henry  Day .  410 

Moonrise,  25x30,  1891.  T.  G.  Briggs .  330 

Late  Summer,  Hastings,  16x24,  1863.  h>.  Pickman .  .  875 

Leeds,  New  York,  9x13,  1864.  C.  S.  Schultz .  125 

In  the  Greenwood,  18x12,  1868.  S.  E.  Buchanan .  125 

Homeless,  30x45,  1889.  Edward  Runge .  300 

Sunset,  22x36,  1889.  G.  H.  Hobart .  825 

The  Old  Orchard,  Milton,  22x34,  1881.  F.  S.  Fisher .  270 

After  the  Rain,  1830,  1888.  A.  T.  Sander .  160 

Path  through  the  Pines,  32x42,  1894.  Thomas  B.  Clarke .  900 

Siasconset,  18x26,  1887.  Edward  Thaw .  340 

Etretat,  Normandy,  18x26,  1874.  F.  L.  Leland .  200 

Sunset  over  the  Hudson,  22x34,  1880.  F.  L.  Leland .  470 

On  the  Edge  of  the  Wood,  30x45,  1894.  Mrs.  S.  D.  Warren .  675 

Sacred  Grove  near  Rome,  Italy,  20x30,  1872.  Edward  Thaw .  575 

The  Afternoon  Drive,  12x16,  1884.  John  R.  Watters .  140 

Moonlight,  22x27,  1893.  W.  T.  Evans .  300 

Pond  at  Milton-on-the-Hudson,  1434^x26,  1881.  John  R.  Watters .  160 

St.  Andrew’s,  New  Brunswick,  32x42,  1893.  D.  B.  Samuels .  380 

Sunlit  Valley,  24x36.  Edward  Kearney .  1.55° 

Durham,  Conn.,  18x26,  1879,  F.  M.  Shepard . . .  310 

Off  Penzance,  Cornwall,  England,  20x30,  1887.  Frederic  Bonner .  250 

The  Old  Apple  Tree,  16x24,  1883.  Henry  Sampson .  550 

Afterglow,  25x30,  1893,  C.  L.  Hutchinson .  1.075 

Tivoli,  Italy,  21x25,  1871.  J.  Metcalf .  260 

Breaking  through  the  Clouds,  17x25!^,  1883.  Charles  S.  Schultz .  210 

North  Conway,  12x18,  1875.  Frank  H.  Scott .  260 

Late  September,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  30x45,  1893.  L.  Blair .  320 

In  the  Orchard,  22x34,  1880.  G.  Lusk .  160 

Nantucket.  A.  H.  Alker .  350 

Hastings,  New  York,  12x17,  1863.  J.  S.  Barnes .  240 

Etretat,  Normandy,  France,  25x30,  1874.  F.  Cromwell .  525 

The  Pasture,  Milton,  22x34,  1880.  W.  T.  Evans .  575 

Viaduct  at  Lari cha,  Italy,  18x26,  1872.  G.  E.  Tewksbury .  300 

The  Glowing  Sun,  24x36,  1894.  W.  N.  Peak .  710 

Apple  Blossoms,  Springtime,  Montclair,  N.  J.,  20x30,  1885.  F.  H.  Bosworth _  180 

A  Glimpse  of  the  Lake,  22x27,  1888.  D.  B.  Samuels .  160 

The  Path  of  the  River,  Milton-on-the-Hudson,  31x37,  1884.  J.  O.  Wright .  500 

The  Edge  of  the  Meadow,  181^x24.  F.  H.  Bosworth .  310 

A  View  in  Montclair  (artist  in  the  foreground),  22x25,  1878.  Century  Club .  170 

The  Sun’s  Last  Reflection,  30x45,  1893.  E.  W.  Bass .  1,100 

In  the  Orchard,  20x30.  D.  Pickman .  225 

In  the  Gloaming,  27x22,  1893.  C.  S.  Houghton .  675 

Harvest,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  29x39,  1884.  F.  T.  Leland .  400 

Sunset  at  Etretat,  Normandy,  20x30,  1874.  G.  W.  Elkins .  1,000 

46 


Orange  Road,  Tarpon  Springs,  Florida,  25x30,  1893.  R.  K.  Mygatt .  $180 

Moonlight  on  Passamaquoddy  Bay,  30x45,  1893.  M.  A.  Ryerson .  800 

The  Side  of  the  Hill,  i8|^x24>^,  1884.  F.  S.  Babbitt .  230 

Autumn,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  12x28,  1890.  F.  M.  Shepard .  375 

Rosy  Morning,  30x45,  1894.  M.  A.  Ryerson .  1,500 

Tarpon  Springs,  Florida,  30x45,  1893.  J.  M.  Martin .  850 

Sundown,  42x70,  1894.  G.  E.  Tewksbury .  2,100 

Pompton,  New  Jersey,  i8xi2}4,  1877.  R.  W.  Carson .  220 

Summer,  Milton,  14^x20,  1883.  F.  G.  Lloyd .  180 

Sunset,  16x24,  1883.  L.  F.  Roos .  450 

Durham,  Connecticut,  1870.  Josephs.  Wood .  100 

Medfield,  Massachusetts,  10x12,%,  1861.  M.  A.  Ryerson .  200 

Monte  Lucia,  Perugia,  Italy,  i3>^xi9>^,  1873.  P-  H.  McMahon .  190 

Montclair,  New  Jersey,  10x18,  1883.  W.  A.  White .  icx5 

Pompton  on  the  edge  of  the  Woods,  9>^xi3,  1877.  R.  W.  Carson .  170 

Niagara  Falls,  16x24,  18S5.  A.  C.  Rand .  510 

Porto  d’Asio,  Italy,  9^x13,  1872.  Peter  V.  Burnett .  300 

Home  of  the  Heron,  Tarpon  Springs,  Florida,  22x27,  ^893.  G.  H.  Hobart .  550 

Moonlight.  16x24,  1890.  W.  T.  Evans .  240 

Sunset,  22x36.  Peter  V.  Burnett .  320 

Catskill  Creek,  9J^xi3,  1866.  F.  S.  Wells .  no 

Etretat,  Normandy,  14x26,  1874.  Joseph  S.  Woods .  190 

Albano,  Italy,  g%xi2,%,  1872.  J,  Smith .  180 

Autumn,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  25x30,  1883.  A.  W.  Drake .  375 

Old  Elm  at  Medfield,  Mass.,  16x24,  1890.  M.  A.  Ryerson .  825 

From  the  Swangunk  Mountains,  20x30,  1885.  R.  F.  Luckey .  225 

Clear  Evening,  12x18,  1876.  W.  S.  Thurber .  260 

Midsummer,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  35x45,  1886.  John  R.  Watters .  400 

The  Road  to  the  Village,  Milton,  22x34,  1880.  F.  G.  Lloyd .  525 

Pool  in  the  Woods,  22x27,  1892.  John  E.  Falk .  175 

The  Pasture,  Durham,  Conn.,  18x26,  1879.  P.  H.  McMahon .  200 

Etretat,  Normandy,  France,  30x45,  1892.  Louis  Ettlinger .  1,050 

From  the  Hillside,  20x29,  1890.  John  E.  Falk .  200 

Scene  on  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  27^x41  Yt.,  1883.  W.  A.  White .  775 

Hastings,  i5X23>^,  1867.  R.  N.  Carson .  360 

An  Old  Veteran,  27x27.  L.  C.  Earl .  280 

No.  no.  No  Title,  ijYxiiY.  C.  M.  Kurtz .  no 

An  Autumn  Day,  24x36,  1892.  A.  W.  Drake .  440 

No.  112,  No  Title,  12x18.  Geo.  G.  Riggs .  100 

Sunset  over  the  Hill,  30x45,  1894.  J.  Ross .  b55o 

The  Meeting  at  the  Brook,  Milton-on-th e-Hudson,  20x30,  1888.  J.  O’Connor _  260 

In  the  Meadows,  i2j^xi8,  1877.  D.  C.  G.  Watkins .  300 

A  Glimpse  of  the  Hudson,  Milton,  25x30,  1883.  S.  P.  Avery,  Jr .  700 

Early  Autumn,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  30x45,  1894.  E.  M.  Colie .  300 

The  Old  Stone  Wall,  10x14,  1878.  G.  E.  Tewksbury .  125 

View  from  the  Hill,  26x36,  1887.  J.  Hamden  Dougherty .  190 

Early  Morning,  22^x29,  1891.  Geo.  N.  Miller .  220 

Spring  Blossoms,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  30x45,  1891.  Frederic  Bonner .  1,200 

In  the  Woods,  16x24,  1890.  F.  S.  Wells .  210 

Hillside  at  Milton,  22x27,  1878.  S.  R.  Metcalf .  310 

The  Pequonic  River,  Pompton,  New  Jersey,  18x26,  1877.  Rudolph  E.  Schirmer.  425 

47 


♦ 


A  Montclair  Winter,  22x36,  1889.  A.  W.  Drake .  S500 

Glimpse  of  the  Hudson,  near  Tarrytown,  25x30,  1891.  R.  F,  Luckey .  500 

Sunset,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  22x36,  1889.  A.  T.  Sander .  230 

Catskill  Cove,  16x24,  1886.  Edward  Thaw .  475 

Etretat,  Normandy,  10X13X,  1873.  George  R.  Green .  250 

The  Beeches,  32x42,  1894.  Alfred  Corning  Clarke .  1,150 

A  View  in  the  Adirondacks,  22x27,  1888.  F.  L.  Fisher .  250 

A  Cloudy  Day,  25x30,  1890.  Joseph  H.  Spafford .  550 

Twilight,  30x45,  1889.  S.  P.  Avery,  Jr .  475 

Glimpse  of  the  Campagna,  from  Albano,  Italy,  18x26,  1872.  John  D.  Crimmins.  500 

Gossip,  Milton,  20x30,  1884.  Marks  Arnheim .  210 

Eagleswood,  New  Jersey,  16x24,  1866.  C.  L.  Hutchinson .  600 

November,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  30x45,  1894.  S.  P.  Avery,  Jr .  500 

The  Road,  Tarpon  Springs,  Florida,  25x30,  1893.  C.  Baker .  240 

Pompton  Junction,  New  Jersey,  12x18,  1877.  W.  A.  White .  200 

On  the  Road  to  the  River,  Milton,  22x34,  1880.  Joseph  Hartley .  175 

Looking  over  the  Valley,  30x45,  1892.  Century  Club .  500 

Etretat,  Normandy,  18x26,  1874.  F.  L.  Fisher .  250 

Yosemite  Valley,  California,  25x30,  1890.  Allan  Marquand .  225 

Winter,  Montclair,  16x24,  1882.  F.  L.  Fisher .  225 

Springtime,  30x45,  1886.  W.  T.  Carrington .  290 

Back  of  my  Studio,  Milton-on-the-Hudson,  20x30,  1878.  Marks  Arnheim .  420 

Milton,  16x24,  1880.  F.  G.  Lloyd .  450 

Going  for  the  Cows,  22x27,  1892.  P.  H.  McMahon .  425 

Off  the  Coast  of  Cornwall,  England,  25x30,  1887.  J.  D.  Crimmins . . .  1,900 

Florence,  Italy,  18x26,  1872.  L.  G.  Bloomingdale .  300 

Keene  Valley,  18x24,  1887.  D.  McCosker .  145 

In  the  Woods,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  30x40,  1888.  Mrs.  Lawrence .  480 

The  Gleaners,  26x36,  1894.  D.  L.  Pickman .  650 

The  Lane,  Milton,  i8}4x^o,  1880.  W.  Sherburne .  190 

Early  Moonrise,  Florida,  32x42,  1893.  James  Ross .  1,700 

Afternoon,  24x36,  1891.  C.  C.  Ruthrauff .  310 

The  Brook,  22x27,  1890.  E.  H.  Bourne .  320 

The  Lonely  Pine,  30x45,  1894.  Cyrus  J.  McCormick .  1,700 

California,  47x50,  1894.  Union  League  Club  of  New  York .  1,200 

Niagara  Falls,  44x69,  1891.  L.  C.  Earl .  800 

Under  the  Trees,  14x16.  Wm.  E.  Thorn .  200 

Alexandria  Bay,  16x24,  1880.  R.  Ingalls .  200 

Keene  Valley,  Adirondacks,  iij^xiij^.  Wm.  Macbeth .  120 

Tivoli,  Italy,  12x16,  1870.  Theodore  Seligman .  385 

Milton,  16x24,  1883.  Geo.  R.  Green .  175 

Barbarini  Villa,  Italy,  9x13^,  1872.  M.  A.  Ryerson .  225 

In  the  Morning,  9^x14,  1877.  G.  E.  Tewksbury .  280 

Leeds,  New  York,  9x13,  1864.  Robert  Orr .  140 

Niagara,  16x24,  1885.  W.  N.  Peak .  500 

Etretat,  Normandy,  France,  18x26,  1874.  S.  C.  G.  Watkins .  250 

Pool  in  the  Woods,  20x30,  1890.  W.  N.  Peak .  610 

Cascade,  Tivoli,  Italy,  iiXxi8,  1870.  Peter  N.  Burnett .  140 

Leeds,  New  York,  12x18,  1864.  W.  T.  Evans .  325 

My  Orchard,  Montclair,  16x24,  1888.  S.  G.  Perry .  175 

The  Pond,  10x14,  1877.  S.  M.  Roosevelt .  180 

48 


Old  Aqueduct,  Campagna,  Italy,  17x24,  1871.  Geo.  R.  Green .  $625 

Picnic  in  the  Woods,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  30x45,  1894.  W.  S.  Thurber .  625 

The  Coming  Storm,  25x30,  1893.  J.  E.  Ferdinand .  600 

Pompton,  New  Jersey,  18x26,  1877.  Ira  Davenport .  650 

The  Brook,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  20x30,  1882.  L.  G.  Bloomingdale .  290 

The  Shower,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  32x42,  1891.  G.  E.  Tewksbury .  250 

In  the  Woods,  Milton,  20x30,  1881.  P.  Griswold .  190 

The  Old  Oak,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  1892.  R.  W.  De  Forest .  825 

A  Wood  Interior,  19x14,  1887.  J.  W.  Leigh .  260 

Moonrise,  Alexandria  Bay,  30x45,  1891.  Wm.  Barbour .  775 

Olives,  Albano,  Italy,  18x26,  1872.  A.  A.  Anderson .  430 

Hazy  Morning,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  30x50,  1893.  L.  G.  Bloomingdale .  390 

Goochland,  West  Virginia,  18x24,  1884.  Thomas  B.  Clarke .  260 

The  Village,  30x40,  1886.  H.  E.  Hayes .  270 

Leeds,  New  York,  13X17J4,  1864.  John  R.  Watters .  200 

In  the  Woods,  21x29,  1891.  Geo.  R.  Riggs .  220 

The  Return  to  the  Farm,  Milton-on -the-Hudson,  26x38,  1882.  D.  McCosker _  185 

View  from  my  Studio,  Tarpon  Springs,  Florida,  25x30,  1892.  L.  Stern .  825 

Etretat,  Normandy,  26x18,  1874.  J.  I.  Bulkley .  280 

The  Lonely  Farm,  Nantucket,  30x45,  1892.  G.  E.  Tewksbury .  875 

Sunburst,  16x24,  1883.  F,  G.  Lloyd .  360 

Across  the  Meadows,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  32x42,  1893.  C.  H.  Russell .  200 

A  Glimpse  Through  the  Woods,  I2xi7>^,  1883.  Robert  Orr .  150 

A  Snowy  Haystack,  24x38,  1889.  K.  Haas .  320 

Medfield,  Mass.,  14x20,  1861.  E.  Grant .  330 

A  Windy  Day,  25XX38X,  1885.  Edward  D.  Page .  300 

Moonlight,  Tarpon  Springs,  Florida,  30x45,  1894.  H.  E.  Hayes .  400 

Goochland,  West  Virginia,  20x30,  1884.  A.  W.  Drake .  290 

Sundown,  i8>^x24>^,  1889.  A.  Lewisohn .  310 

Autumn  Afternoon  (The  last  picture  painted  in  Montclair,  New  Jersey),  30x45,  ^ 

1894.  S.  P.  Avery,  Jr .  810 

Albano,  Italy,  18x26,  1872.  S.  P.  Avery,  Jr. .  900 

The  Pequonic  River,  Pompton,  New  Jersey,  18x26,  1877.  R.  K.  Mygatt .  400 

Wood  Interior,  Keene  Valley,  18x24,  1887.  Louis  Ettlinger .  260 

The  Old  Farm,  30^x50 1893.  W.  T.  Evans .  475 

In  the  Orchard,  Milton,  20x30,  1881.  G.  E.  Tewksbury .  425 

Sunset,  Milking  Time,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  22x36,  1889.  W.  H.  Sheehy .  950 

A  Cloudy  Day,  18x24,  1877.  S.  P.  Avery,  Jr .  675 

Gulf  of  Mexico,  Florida,  24x36,  1894.  R.  N.  Carson .  500 

Albano,  Italy,  18x26,  1872.  A.  C.  Rand .  180 

Pompton,  12x18,  1877.  John  S.  Barnes .  49° 

The  Valley  on  a  Gloomy  Day,  30x45,  189-.  A.  W.  Drake .  450 

Gathering  Wood,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  20x30,  1889.  S.  D.  Coykendall .  450 

Early  Moonrise,  24x36,  1893.  William  Littauer .  550 

Autumn,  34x44.  E.  Blumenstiel .  875 

Alexandria  Bay,  16x20,  1880.  J.  T.  Shields .  200 

Moonlight,  22x27,  1890.  Thomas  B.  Clarke .  300  -j 

After  Sundown,  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  30x45,  1888.  W.  V.  Lawrence .  1,225  ' 

The  Hudson  at  Milton,  20x30,  1878.  G.  H.  Hobart .  480 

Storm  Clouds,  i4J^xi7>^,  1892.  Miss  Willard .  350 

Old  Mill,  Marlborough-on-the-Hudson,  22>^X28>^,  1882.  E.  Thaw .  575 

49 


Looking  over  the  Hudson  at  Milton,  27x22,  1888.  A.  S.  Lascell .  $475 

The  Pond,  29X37X-  Louis  Ettlinger .  460 

A  Stormy  Day,  22x28.  Win.  Macbeth .  475 

Eventide,  Tarpon  Springs,  Florida,  30x45,  1893.  H.  E.  Hayes .  750 

Near  my  Studio,  Milton,  20x30,  1882.  W.  A.  White .  390 

Autumn,  20x30,  1892.  G.  E.  Tewksbury .  300 

Sunrise,  30x45,  1891.  W.  A.  White .  1,200 

After  the  Shower,  20x30,  1886.  W.  V.  Lawrence .  210 

Hillside,  20x30.  M.  A.  Ryerson .  575 

A  Breezy  Day,  22x27,  1893.  S.  P.  Avery,  Jr .  950 

Autumn,  25x30,  1892.  S.  P.  Avery,  Jr .  775 

St.  Andrews,  New  Brunswick,  1893.  J.  C.  Wells .  1,125 

Coast  of  Cornwall.  W.  Barbour .  750 

Late  Sunset,  39x53.  G.  E.  Tewksbury .  950 

The  Red  Oaks,  36x54,  1894.  Chas.  E.  Clark .  1,025 

The  Coming  Storm,  60x120,  1892 . Withdrawn 


Among  the  purchasers  at  the  sale  may  be  noted  Messrs.  Charles  L.  Hutchinson, 
Cyrus  J.  McCormick  and  Martin  A.  Ryerson,  of  Chicago;  Mrs.  S.  D.  Warren,  of 
Boston;  Messrs.  John  D.  Crimmins,  Edward  Kearney,  G.  E.  Tewksbury,  Frederic 
Bonner,  A.  W.  Drake,  Joseph  Hartley,  M.  Arnheim,  Thomas  B.  Clarke,  L.  G.  Bloom- 
ingdale,  C.  C.  Ruthrauff,  David  McCosker,  Louis  Ellinger,  J.  S.  Wood,  P.  H. 
McMahon,  G.  A.  Hobart,  F.  S.  Wells,  F.  J.  Smith,  B,  F.  Luckey,  J.  Falk,  L.  C.  Earl, 
Charles  M.  Kurtz,  G.  C.  Riggs,  J.  O’Connor,  S.  L.  G.  Watkins,  E.  M.  Collis,  J.  H. 
Dougherty,  G.  N.  Miller,  F.  S.  Weeks,  S.  R.  Metcalf,  R.  E.  Shirmer,  W.  T.  Sander, 
Edward  Thaw,  W.  C.  Clark,  F.  L.  Fisher,  Allan  Marquand,  W.  T.  Covington,  W. 
Sherburne,  F.  M.  Shepherd,  F.  S.  Fisher,  Henry  Hess,  Jr.,  H.  J.  Luce,  A.  H.  Alker, 
D.  B.  Samuels,  Carl  H.  De  Silver,  John  Notman,  F.  L.  Leland,  F.  J.  Briggs,  C.  S. 
Schultz,  S.  E.  Buchanan,  John  R.  Watters,  F.  H.  Scott,  Graham  Lusk,  John  T.  Barnes, 
W.  N.  Peak,  Mrs.  F.  H.  Bosworth,  C.  H.  Houghton,  R.  K.  Mygatt,  F.  L.  Babbitt,  J. 
M.  Martin  and  James  A.  Ross,  the  latter  of  Montreal.  Purchases  were  also  made  for 
the  Century  Assoeiation  and  the  Union  League  Club,  of  New  York. 

There  is,  in  connection  with  this  sale,  a  point  to  be  noted  of  much  interest  to 
collectors.  A  month  before  Messrs.  Ortgies  &  Co.  made  the  executors’  sale,  at 
Chickering  Hall,  the  American  Art  Association  sold  the  Inness  collection  of  Mr. 
Richard  H.  Halsted,  in  their  galleries  on  Madison  Square.  The  Halsted  collection 
numbered  twenty  pictures,  all  of  a  high  and  many  of  the  first  order.  The  sale  had, 
apparently,  been  decided  on  by  Mr.  Halsted  in  consequence  of  the  very  extensive 
advertising  which  the  executors’  collection  had  received  from  its  exhibition  at  the 
Fine  Arts  Building,  previous  to  its  transfer  to  the  galleries  of  Ortgies  &  Co.  The 
general  opinion  at  the  time  was  that  it  would  suffer  from  antedating  the  executors, 
sale,  which,  being  final,  and  disposing  of  everything  of  the  artist’s  in  his  possession 
at  his  death,  would,  in  its  way,  afford  a  scale  of  prices  which  would  be  authoritative. 
It  was  argued  that,  valuable  as  the  Halsted  pictures  were,  people  would  wait  to  see 
whether  those  belonging  to  the  estate  were  not  more  valuable,  and  to  ascertain  what 
prices  they  would  reach;  that,  in  short,  the  Halsted  sale  would  not  create  an 
enthusiasm  among  collectors  or  bring  out  the  buyers,  because  it  was  premature.  At 
the  executors’  sale  the  smaller  pictures — say,  on  an  average,  from  14x20  to  20x30 
inches — brought  more  than  they  would  have  done  at  private  sale,  and  many  of  them 
were  studies  rather  than  pictures  in  the  conventional  acceptance  of  the  terms.  The 
Halsted  pictures,  all  of  a  market  standard,  and  purchased  by  Mr.  Halsted  at  full 

50 


prices,  were  at  the  most  moderate  estimate  of  experts  appraised  at  $40,000 — which 
was  about  what  he  had  paid  for  them,  with  the  legal  interest  which  is  supposed  to 
accrue  upon  an  investment.  These  facts  being  held  in  mind,  the  following  correct 
report  of  the  Halsted  sale  is  not  only  interesting  in  itself,  but  valuable  as  showing 
the  close  business  discrimination  which  collectors,  and  even  casual  buyers  of  pictures, 
make  in  their  purchases  of  works  under  the  hammer.  The  Halsted  sale  is  given  as 
catalogued,  with  the  names  of  the  buyers,  and  shows,  as  will  be  noted,  a  deficiency 
of  nearly  $9,000  on  the  expert’s  appraisals  of  its  value  and  on  its  actual  cost  to 
its  owner. 


“Autumn  Gold,”  J.  R.  Watters .  $1,650 

“The  Edge  of  the  Forest,”  C.  W.  Gould .  1.450 

“Sunset  on  the  Passaic,”  J.  R.  Watters .  i.i75 

“The  Coming  Shower,”  E.  Thaw .  1,050 

“Twilight  in  Florida,”  J.  H.  Schiff .  1,100 

“Tenafly  Oaks,”  E.  Thaw .  2,100 

“Valley  of  the  Olive  Oaks,”  W.  M.  Laffan .  1,600 

“A  Breezy  Autumn,”  Mrs.  C.  F.  Butterfield .  1,450 

“Summer  Foliage,”  T.  B.  Clarke .  1,050 

“  A  Woodland  Path,"  J.  R.  Watters .  750 

“The  Clearing,”  E.  Thaw .  1,750 

“  Midsummer,”  A.  T.  White .  1,450 

“An  Autumn  Sunset,”  Louis  Ettlinger .  1,200 

“  Sunrise,”  W.  A.  Putnam .  1,300 

“Passing  Storm,”  Mrs.  Butterfield .  2,150 

“  Near  the  Village — October,”  Franklin  Murphy .  1,400 

“  Moonrise,”  A.  H.  Alker .  875 

“September  Noon,”  A.  H.  Alker . .  i,55o 

“  A  Silver  Morning,”  W.  H.  Granberry .  2,750 

“  Storm  on  the  Delaware,”  W.  H.  Granberry .  3, 5 50 


Total . $31,350 


51 


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£.LLICTT  DAimthflkLD 
GAIN^BCJCUGH  STUDIOS 
222  West  59th  St. 
8ew  York. 


lia^y  21st,  1917. 


M,  Knoedler  &  Sons, 

Fifth  Avenue. 

Dear  i^r.  Knoedlert 

I  have  aany  surprises  and  pleasures  in  my  study  of  the 
work  of  6ur  great  painter,  George  Inness  —  but  rarely,  rarely  have  I  had 
greater  Joy  than  was  aine  this  aorning  in  seeing  the  great  work  you  now 
have.  Long  ago  I  watched  this  picture  grow  under  the  fibster’s  hand,  and 
when  he  had  brought  it  to  its  present  perfect  state,  I  felt,  and  he,  the 
painter  felt  it  v?as  the  peer  of  any  and  second  to  none  in  all  his  long  list 
of  master  works!.  The  perfect  assemblage  of  tones,  the  exquisite  wealth 
of  the  7  and  the  treason  -  its  subtle  technique  which  Is  George  Inness  at 
his  height  -  all  combine  to  aak©  this  woik  a  jewel  indeed.  I  used  formerly 
to  say  to  myself,  "Some  day  I  am  going  to  buy  that  picture".  Well,  you 
have  it  and  I  have  seen  it  again,  and  my  joy  is  full.  The  man  idio  owns  it 
will  have  the  fullness  and  ripeness  of  all  landscape  art.  It  is  quite 
triumphantly  beautiful. 

Sincerely, 


iiLLICTT  DAihGLRFILLD, 


BH 

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ELLICTT  DAINGERFIELD 
GAINSBCRCUCffl  STUDIOS 
222  West  59th  St. 
New  York. 


Ma7  21st,  1917. 

M,  Knoedler  &  Sons, 

Fifth  Avenue. 

Dear  Mr.  Knoedler: 

I  have  many  surprises  and  pleasures  in  my  study  of  the 
work  of  our  great  painter,  George  Inness  —  but  rarely,  rarely  have  I  had 
greater  joy  than  was  mine  this  morning  in  seeing  the  great  work  you  now 
have.  Long  ago  I  watched  this  picture  grow  under  the  master *s  hand,  and 
when  he  had  brought  it  to  its  present  perfect  state,  I  felt,  and  he,  the 
painter  felt  it  was  the  peer  of  any  and  second  to  none  in  all  his  long  list 
of  master  works!.  The  perfect  assemblage  of  tones,  the  exquisite  wealth 
of  the  ?  and  the  Season  -  its  subtle  technique  which  is  George  Inness  at 
his  height  -  all  combine  to  make  this  wodc  a  jewel  indeed.  I  used  formerly 
to  say  to  myself,  ”Some  day  I  am  going  to  buy  that  picture".  Well,  you 
have  it  and  I  have  seen  it  again,  and  my  joy  is  full.  The  man  who  owns  it 
will  have  the  fullness  and  ripeness  of  all  landscape  art.  It  is  quite 

triumphantly  beautiful. 

Sincerely, 


ELLIGTT  DAINGERFIELD 


ELLIOTT  DAINGERFIELD 


■*  '■  'JM 

